


love finds you

by hockeysometimes, poindextears



Series: Good Haven universe [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Diners, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Falling In Love, Hipster Nursey, Irresponsible Time Travel, Kent and Dex are best friends, M/M, Mutual Annoyances to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Nursey and Dex are stupid, Nursey is in grad school, Sexy Dexy Had A Farm (eieio), Slow Burn, Sorry that last tag was bad, Time Travel, Waiter Dex, also Annie's, for some reason, maine, the rest of the cp cast is in this universe but not necessarily in this story, they're aged up just a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 221,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeysometimes/pseuds/hockeysometimes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/poindextears/pseuds/poindextears
Summary: Things Derek expected to find on his summer vacation: a cure for his writer’s block.Things Derek did not expect to find: a warp 60 years into the past; a tiny Maine town full of surprisingly cool people; William James Poindexter.Or: Nursey winds up new in town, in a town that’s not so new.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Series: Good Haven universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582840
Comments: 525
Kudos: 546
Collections: Avea's Fav Fanfics





	1. a wedding

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ sincerelyreidburke (formerly poindextears) on tumblr](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/), and my co-creator on this AU is [hockeysometimes](https://hockeysometimes.tumblr.com/). We both brainstorm, and I write the fic, then she writes the poetry. Thank you very much for reading, and I'm so grateful for kudos/comments!

_ June 26th, 2021 _

It’s a beautiful wedding.

It was sure to be, from the second the sun came up this morning, or maybe even from the moment it was stuck on the calendar an entire year ago. The weather is the kind you only dream of on a day like this— balmy with sunshine aplenty, not too hot but not too cool either. The California summertime couldn’t have given the happy couple a more perfect day.

The ceremony is over, as are dinner and the pictures— so many pictures— but under the banquet tent, the party has practically just begun. Guests mill about on the dance floor and between tables, talking and laughing and demonstrating what turn out to be mostly pretty awful dance moves. Afternoon sunshine filters in, catching on wine glasses and silverware, or on the sparkles in the bridal party’s dresses. Little strands of lights strung along the edges of the tent illume to give some light to the shade, and the tables sport flowers in teal and white that match the bride’s long-since-tossed bouquet.

Derek Nurse stands near the head table, taking in the scene. It’s a good spot to watch from, right at the front of the tent, and he’s been parked here for at least a little while— he’s overseeing the cutting and distribution of the cake. If he’s being honest, it’s better to stand up here, because not only is it a prime spot for people-watching, but it gets him out of the mix a little.

It’s a big crowd to feel alone in.

It’s not that he  _ doesn’t _ want to mingle. Of course he does. He just also needs a minute to, well, chill. Dinner wrapped up awhile ago, and setting a bunch of guests— Derek included— loose with an open bar and a live band is a dangerous game, but the party is hopping, and he knows it won’t wind down for awhile. He knows his alcohol tolerance, and he knows he could get dangerously unhinged at this party given the chance, which is maybe  _ not _ what he’s trying to do tonight.

Even the bride herself, Derek notes, is dancing— she’s with a gaggle of small children, and she’s still in her white dress, even though it’s been hours since she said her vows.

The scene is so nice he could write about it, could try to capture this imagery for a later time, for when he leaves California and flies home to New York, for when he’s alone in his apartment and needs something to muse on, for when he’s missing the company he finds here.

That is, if he could figure out how to write again.

But okay, he has to remind himself, that’s  _ really _ not a problem right now. This is his best friend’s wedding. If inspiration strikes him, it’ll happen at the right time, in the right place.

And as for today… the place is packed. It’s perfect. It’s everything the happy couple deserves.

Derek straightens his suit jacket and grins.

“Nursey!”

He knows the voice before he even sees him. When his best friend approaches, it comes quickly and out of nowhere, and he’s bombarded by a tight hug that he laughs as he returns. “‘Sup, C.” Chris Chow is a busy man— as you are, on the day of your wedding— and there are so many people here for him to greet and mingle with that it’s been at least thirty minutes since Derek even saw him. “How’s it been going?”

“It’s the  _ best _ !” Chowder, when he lets go of him, is all smiles. His teal tie is just a little crooked, which is probably a byproduct of the hug, but other than that, he’s every bit the put-together groom. His cheeks are rosy pink with joy, which is really fucking wholesome if Derek is being honest, and it’s such a typical Chowder expression that Derek almost laughs again.

“I think I’ve talked to, like, two hundred people today,” Chowder says. “Also, I keep losing Cait by accident, but turns out she’s dancing with my cousins right now.” Derek eyes the bride in question— indeed she is, and she’s taking it like a champ, given the fact they’re all like half her height and filled to the brim with energy. Chowder lets out a long, dreamy sigh. “Isn’t she so beautiful?”

Derek claps him on the shoulder. “She looks radiant, man.”

Chowder is smiling like it’s going out of style. “Yeah.  _ Radiant _ .” He pauses to admire his brand-new wife. Caitlin’s dress shimmers in the filtered sunlight, a long skirt with lace sleeves. Her brown hair is in an updo that probably took at least an hour, and her smile is gentle and never-ending. Derek stood by his side, as his best man, while Chowder dissolved into the happiest of tears when she walked down the aisle a few hours ago.

Then Chowder turns to him. “How are you doing?” he asks. “Thanks for babysitting the cake.”

Derek lets out a little snort. “No problem,” he replies, glancing over his shoulder to the giant dessert in question. It’s chocolate with cream cheese icing, and teal accents in the frosting. Teal is Chowder’s brand. “Have you had more?”

“Yeah, only, like,  _ three pieces _ .” Chowder pauses. “Okay. More like two. But still. It’s so good. I can’t help it!”

“It’s delicious.”

“Have you been mingling?” Chowder asks, as he surveys his reception.

Derek grins a little, or at least tries to. It’s not part of his brand  _ not _ to be the life of the party. “I guess.”

Chowder lowers his voice and leans into his ear a little. “Sorry for all the hockey people.”

“Dude, are you kidding?” Derek says, at full volume. “It’s beyond chill.” Because although, yes, it’s definitely a first to be at a wedding where at least twenty of the attendees are in the National Hockey League, Chowder couldn’t  _ not _ invite his teammates. He was drafted to the Sharks straight out of college, two years ago, when he and Derek both graduated. Everybody with a pulse saw it coming, and after a year in farm league, he graduated to rookie starter status this past season.

Derek may know him as the Samwell University varsity goalie he defended in front of for four years, but today, to the world, Chris Chow is something of the NHL’s sweetheart— and he was born for this.

Hence, at least a dozen professional hockey players at this wedding. They’re all huge, but then again, Derek is a d-man, through and through, and Chowder isn’t much smaller.

“Oh,” Chowder says, then grins again. “Cool. And you’re having fun?”

“Ch’yeah,” Derek says. “This is a great party. Besides, I miss being around hockey people.”

“Hockey misses you,” Chowder says, and he laughs. Grad school in New York has been a change of pace from Samwell, to say the least, and it doesn’t give him much of an opportunity to run into hockey people on a daily basis. As it turns out, your social life is different when it’s populated by fellow writers and not frat bros.

Ha. Social life. Derek almost snorts out loud. What social life?

But these are the things he can’t say out loud, at least not to Chowder, his best friend in the whole entire world.

“Guys!” The voice comes from the dance floor. It’s Caitlin, having finally escaped the circle of never-ending Chow cousins. “Good, you’re in one place.” And she’s not alone— at her side is one of the bridesmaids, with whom Derek has had a mild amount of interaction with today, despite the fact that he can’t remember her name.

Chowder is smiling at Caitlin. “Hello, my beautiful wife.”

Derek mocks rolling his eyes. “Yo, get a  _ room _ .”

Caitlin chooses to ignore this chirp. She’s a good sport, and is well adjusted to Derek’s antics, given the fact that she and Chowder have been together since their freshman year at Samwell. She consults him, rather than her lawfully-wedded husband. “I want to formally introduce you two; I don’t think you’ve met yet.”

Derek guesses this is about the bridesmaid. She stands at Caitlin’s side smiling vigilantly, if not a little awkwardly. “No,” he says, “I don’t think we have.”

“Well, this is Julie,” Caitlin supplies, and Derek reaches to shake her hand, which is sort of tiny in his own. She stands at least several inches taller than him, even in her heels, and has plain blond hair that falls just below her shoulders. Her dress, like all the other bridesmaids’, is teal. “She’s my best friend from high school.”

“Nice to finally meet you,” he says. “I’m Derek.”

“Hi,” Julie says, and her grin gets a little more natural. “I’ve seen you around.”

He flashes a smile back at her. Externally, to the world, there is no Derek Nurse but the one who is perpetually chill.

Internally… well… that’s a different story.

“Seen you, too.”

Chowder butts in like a small child who’s excited to share their latest piece of useless learned knowledge. “Nursey went to Samwell with Cait and I. He played hockey with me.”

Of all the information Chowder has just supplied, Julie chooses to focus on, “Did you say… Nursey?”

“Oh.” Derek grins. He hasn’t introduced himself like that since college. (It’s a sadder observation than he cares to admit.) “It’s a hockey nickname. Everybody on our team got one.” He elbows Chowder. “We call him Chowder.”

“So… how did they come up with—”

“My last name is Nurse.”

“Huh,” Julie offers, but that’s all she says before Cait is grabbing Chowder’s hand and pulling him off-scene.

“We’ll leave you two,” Cait says, with this calculating smile that clues Derek into what they’re doing. This isn’t just a casual introduction.

He almost laughs. Typical Chowder.

“Sorry about them,” Julie mutters, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. It’s been straightened, and has held up well given the fact that it’s been such a long and busy day. Derek is surprised, actually, that they haven’t interacted more than they have; they’re each the second-in-command to Chowder and Caitlin.

And yet, here they are. Meeting at the reception.

“No reason to be sorry,” he tells her. “They’re just… like that, I guess.”

Julie laughs a little. “Yeah, I guess they are.”

There’s a pregnant pause that hangs between them while the band finishes a song. It lasts just long enough that things might turn awkward— but he’s Derek Nurse, king of bravado, and he will absolutely not let this party get awkward.

He holds out a hand. “You wanna dance?”

She smiles and takes it. _ Money shot.  _ “Sure.”

*

“So, uh… where are you from?”

They bob back and forth on the dance floor, surrounded by other pairs. Julie has little to no rhythm, which makes her a questionable dance partner, but at least she’s not stepping on his feet.

“New York,” Derek replies, and then grins. “It was a long flight.”

“Like, New York City, or—”

“Yeah.” He shudders a little at the thought of living upstate. “I was born and raised in Manhattan.”

“Wow.” She raises her eyebrows. Her eyes are greenish, or maybe blue; all the teal in the room makes it hard to tell. “Sounds classy.”

He smirks. “If you want to call it that.”

Classy, until your parents are never home because of their jobs, or you’re practically raised by your nanny, who, by the way, is a super sweet old lady but definitely never substituted for an actual parent. Classy, until they send you away to prep school for hockey, and you figure out that all the kids there are a bunch of privileged assholes. Classy, until you want to study English in college, but your parents say you should get a  _ real degree _ , and the next thing you know, you haven’t seen them since last August and neither party is changing it.

Julie, obviously, knows none of this. Even Chowder only knows some. Derek’s life is a façade of carefully constructed chill. It has always been this way.

“That was a nice speech you gave,” she says, “for the toast.”

“Well, thanks for saying so,” he replies. Thankfully, his recent writing drought did not extend to his best man speech for Chowder, which came easily and naturally. The guy is his best friend for a reason. “I can’t lie, it was a little nerve-wracking doing it in front of, like, an entire NHL team.”

Julie laughs, despite the fact that this isn’t true, exactly. Derek doesn’t really do nervous. But it sounds relatable out loud, and it earns the reaction he was hoping for. “That’s true,” she says. “There’s, like, so many pro athletes here. It’s a little intimidating.”

“Aw, not really,” he says. “I mean, you’ve met Chowd— you’ve met Chris, I mean. He’s not intimidating.”

Julie peeks over her shoulder, where they both spot Chowder at the same time; he’s now talking to Cait’s mom. “I think Chris is the least intimidating person on the planet. But also one of the sweetest.”

Derek laughs. “I’m with you there.”

There’s quiet between them, if you could call it that, given the amount of conversational and musical noise under the tent. He doesn’t let it last too long, though— “So where are  _ you _ from?”

“Originally, here.” She pauses, surveys the scene. “I was born near Oakland. Cait and I went to high school together. But— wait— she already told you that.” Her cheeks, pale as can be, maybe redden a little, and she looks at their shoes. “Christ, I feel short. How tall are you?”

“Six-two,” he says, and while she fronts the usual  _ wow, really?!  _ reaction that short white girls tend to have upon learning his height, he adds, “I play defense in hockey, so it comes in handy.”

She shakes her head wistfully. “I wish I knew what that meant.”

“Aw, c’mon,” he laughs. “Not much of a hockey person?”

“Not really.” She looks around, and Derek follows her lead.  _ Holy shit—  _ is that Patrick Marleau? Wait, didn’t he retire? “I’m more of a tennis person.”

Derek withholds a grimace, but all he says is, “Huh.” And then, after a pause, “Chill.”

*

They dance through two songs, and then he suggests a drink. By the time they make their way back from the bar to a table, the conversation has shifted— from hockey, briefly, to Samwell, to her college— which, as it turns out, was UConn, and is the reason she still lives on the East Coast. She graduated two years ago, same as him and Chowder and Cait, and she works for a real estate company on the Connecticut seaboard.

“What do you do?”

“I’m in school for my PhD.” Derek stirs his gin and tonic. Julie has a glass of white wine that kind of makes her look like a PTA mom-in-training. “But also, I’m an author.”

“An author?” Her eyes widen a little. “Have you written any books?”

_ Don’t you kind of have to write books to call yourself an author?  _ “Yeah. One. So far. It came out last fall.”

“No  _ way _ !” Julie slaps her own knee, which looks like it hurts, and leans forward in her chair. “What’s it about? Could I find it in a bookstore?”

“Firstly, yes,” he answers, and then smiles— that book is his child, and in the nine months since its release, he hasn’t missed an opportunity to tout it to literally anyone. “And secondly… it’s a book of poetry.”

“ _ Wow _ .” Julie looks mesmerized. “Does it have, like, a theme?”

“Sort of, yeah,” he replies, and then he weighs the merits of whether he wants to get into the subject matter of his book— which is mostly very personal, all about mental health and being Black and queer and the intersectionality of it all— talking to this girl who it’s obvious Cait has tried to set him up with, which is fine except she’s really not exactly his type, but then again, he still feels obligated to show her a good time at this party— right?

He exhales. “I guess it’s about my life.”

Julie rests her head in her hand, and now her smile is  _ definitely  _ flirty. “Tell me more.”

Okay, fine. She asked for it.

He launches into an explanation that she, for some reason, actually endures— most white girls he meets at parties tend to check out somewhere around his mention of institutionalized racism, or if not that, then almost certainly bisexuality— but she nods her way along, and at the end, he’s glad he said it. He thinks he may have actually inadvertently sold a copy of the book, if her assurances that she’ll look it up on Amazon are any indication. And book sales are always a win. (Especially when you’re struggling to write your sophomore manuscript.)

Somewhere around the end of his explanation, they get into a conversation with the other people at the table, at least two of whom are Chowder’s teammates, and it’s mostly hockey from there for awhile, until Julie finishes her drink and he takes her for a second glass.

They wind up dancing again. She’s still a bad dancer, and even though she doesn’t seem tipsy, she’s maybe worse than before. Except this time, the song is  _ super _ old-timey. It can’t be newer than, like, whenever doo-wop music was last relevant. The 50s? 60s? Derek doesn’t know.

He checks to see if Chowder is nearby, and, upon seeing him dancing with Cait a few people over, he calls over his shoulder. “Yo, Chow, literally what the  _ fuck _ am I listening to?”

“ _ Nursey _ ,” Caitlin whisper-yells at him. “There are  _ children _ at this wedding.”

Derek surveys the scene, then remarks, “There aren’t children in the  _ vicinity _ .” Next to his shoulder, Julie laughs.

“Man,  _ shut up _ , Nursey,” Chowder says. “This is a classic. My mom loves this song.” Derek snorts, and Julie laughs a little harder. Then Chowder adds, “Okay, I’m sorry I told you to shut up. That was mean. I didn’t mean to be mean.”

His cheeks are flush— he’s been drinking, more than Derek and Julie have, but he’s not completely gone yet. They may be the same age, but sometimes he feels like Chowder is his son. He tilts his head to Julie and murmurs, “They grow up so fast.”

She loses it, resting her head on his shoulder, and informs him, “You’re a little bit of a wise-ass.”

“No  _ way _ , Jules. Not a chance.”

“Maybe a little chance.”

He shrugs. “To each their own.”

And they dance on, off-beat and laughing.

*

Chowder and Cait leave after sundown.

They have about a million people to say goodbye to, and they’re sent off pelted with rice and well-wishes from family and friends and National Hockey League players. Derek plants himself at the end of the exit line, and Julie tags along. When the couple reaches them— and it takes forever— Derek hugs Cait first, and then grabs Chowder’s arms.

“Congratulations, C,” he says. “And thank you. For a great party.”

Chowder’s cheeks are still red, and his smile is blinding. “I love you, bro.”

“I love you too,” Derek laughs, and then he pulls him into a hug. “Bring it in.”

Chowder slaps his back aggressively. “I’ll miss you!”

“I’ll miss you too,” Derek says, and then, when they let go, he says, “Now go. Be with your wife.”

Chowder sneaks a glance to Cait, who’s finishing up her goodbye to her parents. His joy is tangible, contagious, even. Derek wants to bottle it and pour it onto pages of his notebook back home. “I can’t wait,” Chowder breathes, and then he squeezes Derek’s hand and he’s off.

Derek watches him grab Caitlin’s hand, and they give one last wave. Then he can’t help himself. “And Chowder!” he yells, as he’s halfway into the backseat of the limo. Chowder looks up, catches his eye. “Have fun in Disney World!”

“I will!” Chowder laughs, and then, in a flurry of cheering and the zoom of the car, they’re gone, headed straight for San Jose International Airport. Derek is definitely not choking up. Why would he be?

Julie, who is still next to him, pulls him back down to Earth. “I can’t believe they’re honeymooning in Disney World.”

“I can,” Derek replies. “That’s Chowder’s  _ brand _ .”

She laughs, and then there’s a pause. The crowd filters from around them. Derek watches the limo until it’s fully out of sight.

“What now?”

*

He walks her back to the hotel.

It’s not far; all the nuptial events have taken place in the same waterfront town. The wine has gotten her kind of tipsy— turns out she’s a little bit of a lightweight— but Derek feels fine, save the bittersweet knowledge that he won’t see Chowder again for awhile. That’s the problem with living on opposite coasts, 3000 miles apart, from your best friend.

They took Samwell for granted. Graduation was hard.

But he’ll see him again— before Chowder’s season starts, he resolves, and before his classes resume. They tend to make room for a few visits a year.

Julie holds onto his arm, and he gets the front door of the lobby for her. She’s laughing at a joke he told that wasn’t that funny, and he knows where she thinks this is going.

He’s not so sure they’re on the same page about it.

She proves him right when they get to her floor on the elevator, where he’s resolved to drop her off. “So…” Julie leans against the wall next to her door. The spaghetti strap of her teal dress looks like it wants to fall down her shoulder, and she’s smiling. “That was fun.”

Derek knows how to let someone down easy. He’s done it plenty of times— at boarding school, in college, in his grad school life now. He has the kind of extroverted persona that attracts a lot of attention, from girls and guys alike, and being bi helps the process along. But there’s a big difference between attracting a lot of attention and actually having a love life.

Sure, he’s  _ had _ a few relationships, some more serious than others. But he’s not really sure he’s ever been in real, actual love. It’s been awhile since he had something that lasted longer than a second date. It’s even been awhile since he hung out with  _ friends _ , unless you count his weekly phone call with Chowder.

And the loneliness… it gets to you a lot more when you live in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan than when you live in a house full of your teammates at college.

It’s okay, though. He’s okay. He’s making do.

“Derek?”

_ Fuck _ — fuck. He tears himself back down to Earth. Is he dissociating? He hasn’t missed a day of medication, has he? “Sorry, Julie— I’m sorry. I got zoned out for a second there.”

She looks like she’s not sure whether she should laugh, but she opts not to. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah— yes. I’m chill. I’m totally chill.” He straightens up, adjusts his jacket that doesn’t need adjusting.

“Okay,” she says, and then she lingers for a second, holding eye contact. Derek realizes, maybe a second too late, what she’s waiting for, and he hovers as she leans toward his face.

He dodges what he knows she’s expecting, and gives her a hug. She lets out a noise that’s somewhere between an  _ oof _ and an  _ oh _ , and though she hugs back, it’s a limp thing. He knows he’s disappointed her, but he just can’t bring himself to pretend like he wants something he doesn’t.

It’s a hug that can’t be over quick enough. He pulls away and says, “So, look, I’ll catch you later?”

Her face falls a little. “I— yeah. Sure.”

Look. Julie is nice. It’s been a fun night. But he… doesn’t feel the spark. Cait was nice to set them up, but why should he waste Julie’s time? “I’ll ask Caitlin for your number?”

“Er… yeah.” Julie looks like she knows he won’t really do that, which totally blows, but Derek’s brain itches, and he has to get away. “Sounds good.”

“Alright, chill.” He tries to smile, and takes a step backwards down the hall. “Well, it was great to meet you.”

“Yeah. Same here.” She fishes into her purse for her key card, already checked out, and swipes it in her door handle. “Goodnight, Derek.”

He walks a few more steps backward as he waves, and then—  _ oops _ — stumbles over something behind him. It’s a room service cart, but luckily, there’s no hotel employee in sight to witness his near-fall. There’s just Julie— and she maybe laughs as he recovers, but she’s not looking his way anymore.

Derek makes his way back to the elevator, where he waits for the doors to shut, then groans into his hands. He’s not sure what he expected. He didn’t want to make her feel bad, but he just… he’s not in a place to be seeing anybody right now.

What he needs is his giant hotel bed, a glass of water, and a long sleep.

*

His flight home leaves the next morning at eleven. He listens to an audiobook for its duration, a little too tired for anything much more thought-intensive. Flying across the country is like time traveling— he’s done it a few times like this— where you leave California at one time and then it’s nighttime when you get back to New York, because not only do you spend six hours in the air; it’s three extra hours ahead when you get home. Derek is only a little jet-lagged— he’ll feel the effects when he wakes up tomorrow morning at eight and it feels like five.

JFK is a hell of an airport, but he only has a carry-on, so at least he gets to bypass the baggage claim. He catches a cab back to his apartment in Uptown, watching the city move past him out the window, hopping and alive even on a Sunday night. The sun has gone down, but all the cliché about New York is true— his city never sleeps.

He tips the cab driver and pulls his bag out of the trunk, hiking up the steps of his building and unlocking the door to apartment 14A.

Home sweet home, and totally empty.

The whole place is dark, but he has a nice window in the kitchen area that opens up to the lights of Midtown, so he can make his way all the way to the counter and set his bag down before even thinking about an overhead light. His keys  _ clack _ on the marble countertop, and he lets out a long breath. The exhaustion hits him all at once.

It’s been a busy weekend.

For the first time since touchdown at JFK an hour ago, he picks up his phone to check his messages— not that anybody would be texting him, he thinks, right as the notification on-screen proves him wrong. He  _ does _ have a text— but it’s from his agent, so does it really count?

_ Jayda Price: Hi Derek. Are we still on to get coffee this week? Was thinking Tuesday. Hoping to touch base re: book 2. Feel free to bring copies of whatever you’ve been working on. _

Derek sighs.

_ Shit. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, and thank you for reading chapter one! You can find me [here on tumblr](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/), and my co-creator on this AU is [hockeysometimes](https://hockeysometimes.tumblr.com/). She writes the poetry (it starts showing up in later chapters), and I write the fic, but the story is our shared brain-child. I'm grateful for your comments and kudos!


	2. vibe check

_ June 29th, 2021 _

Jayda is the world’s greatest literary agent.

She’s a living superstar. Derek signed with her the summer after he graduated from Samwell, on a cold submission and a stroke of luck, and from there, she sold his first book in record time. It was a few months on sub, and then a deal to a major publisher that actually paid (take that, Mom and Dad). He remembers the phone call like it was yesterday. It came in the middle of one of his graduate classes, and he dipped out the door to take it when he saw her name pop up on the screen. In the hallway, he plopped himself on a bench and prepared himself for news of another rejection— he’d learned quickly that they were common, and not unusual.

Instead, he heard her ecstatic voice on the other line.  _ Derek! We have a deal! _

He broke into a full celly in the mostly deserted hallway, and  _ still _ managed to get a judgey look from some random undergrads passing by.

The book came out in October, and sales were  _ good _ . The publisher had a good marketing campaign, and Jayda helped him spread the word elsewhere. There were rumors of a book tour, but it never happened. He was preoccupied with trying to write his second book.

He wrote  _ a _ second book, started it after he moved back to New York after living for four years at Samwell. He hated it. He still hates it. It sits in his documents folder on his laptop, never to see the light of day. He spent months on it, and he scrapped it. It’s hard to believe in something you’re writing when you can’t stand to even look at it.

He never showed it to Jayda. She keeps asking.  _ Are you working on anything?  _ There’s only so long you can ride the coattails of a debut that did well.

Derek doesn’t want to be a one-hit wonder. But the writer’s block… it’s  _ awful. _

It’s never been quite this bad. He’s been a prolific poet ever since he can remember, and although he didn’t start getting serious about it until high school, he never remembers such a slump like this one. It’s been two years since Samwell, and he feels the drought in his creative spirit. That place was a haven, a home he didn’t realize was one until he left. New York is home, too; it’s an even older home, tied to more memories and more solitary times. But he can’t produce here, not the way he did when he wrote his first book, the one that sold, the one that did well.

And it sucks, it so totally fucking sucks, because he  _ knows _ he’s better than this. He knows this can’t continue. He knows it’s what he’s meant to do.

And Jayda is going to want to absolutely kick his ass.

He leaves his apartment at nine on Tuesday morning. His real job, if you could call it that, is an apprenticeship at a publishing house, but since most of it is remote editing, he doesn’t go in every day. This translates to the fact that, if it’s not necessary, he sometimes goes entire days without leaving his apartment. He’ll go to the gym to let off some steam— life isn’t the same without intensive, NCAA hockey workouts on the daily— but other than that… the outdoors are a fleeting concept, often lost to the haze of his laptop and writer’s block and dissociation.

Derek is, uh. Maybe not the best at remembering to take care of himself. But the world will know that over his dead body.

It’s a busy morning. He carries his messenger bag with him, armed with a laptop and a few notebooks, none of which have much to show for themselves. The streets bustle with people in a hurry, and the summer sun is warm on his face and his head of curls. The walk to Jayda’s coffee shop of choice feels like it takes about eight hours.

He can do this. If there’s one thing he’s really good at, it’s faking it.

She’s seated at a table by the window, hunched over her phone with a croissant and a tall iced coffee to her name. It takes her all of two seconds to notice him, because that woman has at least three extra senses.

She rises and waves, and as they meet at the table, Derek flashes a grin. “Jay, you’re a superstar.”

“So I’ve been told.” Jayda is tall, though she’s no college hockey player, and stands a good half foot below Derek. She has warm brown skin and chameleon hair; it’s ever-changing, and the style of the summer seems to be close-cropped, natural curls, tied up today with a yellow scarf. She wears glasses with thick black frames, and she carries herself with the air of someone who would not hesitate to end your career if necessary.

Which she might, if she finds out how truly awful of a client he’s been recently.

“How are you?” she says, after greeting him with a hug.

Derek knows the standard answer to this question.  _ I’m well; how are you?  _ He’d say this if it were true. He’s not sure how well he really is. He settles for, “I can’t complain,” but does ask her how she is. The pleasantries are standard. He orders an iced almond milk latte, but skips out on food— he’s not so hungry.

Mercifully, Jayda doesn’t launch right into book questions. Instead, she starts with, “I saw on Twitter… you just got home from California?”

“Yeah, I did,” he replies, with an easy grin. He posted a few of the wedding pictures on his social media, which resulted in a surprising amount of clout from various NHL people, not to mention his book Twitter mutuals. “My best friend got married this weekend.”

“It looked like so much fun!” Jayda says. “This is the one who plays pro hockey, right?”

Derek nods. “Yeah, that’s him.” Chowder’s reputation precedes him, which is hilarious, because to Derek he’s still the happy-go-lucky Samwell goalie who used to have braces. “He’d been with his girlfriend— well— wife, I guess, now— since we were in college. I was his best man.”

Jayda smiles. “That’s so nice. Did you have a good time?”

“The best.” Derek pauses, brushes aside the awkward memories of rejecting Julie. He doesn’t do awkward. There’s only chill. “I’m so happy for Chowder. Or—” He chuckles. “Chris. I guess. We called him Chowder in college.”

She smiles still. “I’m glad you had a good time.” Even if it’s just polite conversation, it’s nice to talk about Chowder. He forgets that most of the people in his life now don’t even know him, and if they do, it’s only because they saw him on TV. 

They talk for awhile, about things that don’t have to do with the book world, mostly about her— how she is, how her girlfriend is; she shows Derek various pictures of their kitten, who has grown fatter and fluffier since he last saw his photo six months ago. Derek tries not to think too much about the fact that other than Chowder’s wedding, he really doesn’t have all that much going on in his life to update Jayda about. With no classes in the summer, it’s just editorial work, useless writing, and rinse and repeat.

But the real hard part comes when she finally takes a pause, finishes her croissant, and grows more businesslike. “So… book two.”

Derek does not panic. “I have to be honest with you.”

“Honesty is the best policy.”

He maintains eye contact. He holds his own. He is not a disaster human. “I’m having a really bad block.”

Half of him expects that she won’t take this as an acceptable explanation, but the other half wants to believe she’ll sympathize. She doesn’t show all that much on her face, but says, “Aw… I’m sorry, Derek. Those are the worst.”

“But I  _ have _ been working on it.” He fishes into his bag, pulls out one of his notebooks, leather bound with a stitched spine. It’s the kind of thing you impulse-buy during a depressive episode when someone lets you into a store unhinged. When he flips it open, the few used pages inside are scattered with inconsistent poems and spare drawings. “It’s not much, but…”

Jayda inspects what’s inside, then looks back up at him. “But you’re having trouble putting something together.”

When she puts it that way, it makes his stomach turn. “Something like that.” He pauses, then scrambles. “I can do this, though. I can make it happen. Maybe I should try prose? Maybe—”

“Derek.” Jayda pats a friendly, gentle hand on his elbow. “Let’s talk.”

He lets all his breath out at once, and his body relaxes in places he didn’t even realize were tense. “Right.”

“It seems like you’re having a hard time right now,” she starts, careful and gentle as the nudge of her hand. “I can see it.” He’s mildly shaken that she’s seen through his chill, but too muddled in his writerly woes to care. “And trust me, I know writer’s block. It happens to the best of us.”

He knows she means this. Jayda is a writer, too; she has a young adult book coming out next spring. “But I can’t help you sell a second book if there’s no second book to sell.”

His stomach turns again. “I know. I’m sorry. I—”

“Derek, the last thing I want for you is a sophomore slump,” Jayda says. “And I really believe in you. I don’t think it’s going to happen. But I’d hate to see it.”

Derek swallows. His throat is dry, despite the latte. “I would, too.”

“Of course you would. It’s your career.” She pauses. “It’s not too late. Maybe we should set a deadline.”

_ Deadline.  _ The word is his biggest nemesis. He can write to his heart’s content for shits and giggles, but give him a deadline and suddenly his stuff is all over the place and he can’t organize or compile to save his life. “Maybe.”

“What if… we make a deal,” she says. “If you come up with something by the end of the summer, we can try to work on it in the fall and see where it goes from there.”

Derek keeps the expression off his face, but internally he’s mostly screaming.  _ Or what?  _ he wants to say, but he won’t, can’t— he doesn’t want to know what happens otherwise. His dumb fucking brain will no doubt provide him with plenty of possible answers to that question later, when he’s in his apartment alone with nothing to do but overthink.

_ Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.  _ “That sounds chill.”

“It doesn’t have to be polished,” she says. “Or even complete. Just, if we have  _ something _ to work with, we can move forward. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” Derek nods. He flips through his notebook mindlessly. How is he going to pull a manuscript together in two months. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“You can keep me updated.” She’s using the tone Derek imagines someone might use with a kid, trying to get them to see the bright side of eating their vegetables. He wants to crawl into a hole. “I want to help you. I’m your champion, remember? You should never hesitate to reach out to me if you need help.”

_ Ha.  _ It’s a nice sentiment, but Jayda can’t fix this. Derek is starting to convince himself that nobody can.

But he can’t think like that. He has to try. He’s getting his  _ PhD _ in this shit. He can’t just fizzle out and die, past his prime at the ripe age of twenty-five.

He can do this. He can rebound this summer. It’s not too late.

So he tells Jayda, “I’ll do it. Promise.”

And hopes to every deity ever that he can keep that promise.

*

It’s a normal rest of the work week.

Derek has to go into the publishing office for Wednesday and Thursday, but when he’s not there, he’s holed up in his apartment office trying to do something,  _ anything _ about this writer’s block problem. There are absolutely no fruits that yield from his labor.

He tries everything. Copious cups of coffee, to the point of it definitely not being healthy. Long walks around uptown accompanied by his favorite playlists, packed with Frank Ocean and Bon Iver. Re-reading the tattered paperbacks of his very favorite books on his shelf. He even smokes a joint, like it’ll enlighten him. Nothing helps.

Oh, sure, he  _ writes _ — between actual work tasks and daily chores, he gets words down on paper, in the literal sense of the term. But there’s a big difference between just  _ writing _ and writing something that matters. And he’s certainly not doing the latter.

It’s not his finest hour.

And, like,  _ fuck _ — he has literally no idea what he’s going to tell Jayda. Is his creative process broken? Is he never going to bounce back from this? It’s been months. He thought this would be over by now.

He’s a writer. He has to write. It’s part of his livelihood.

He’s edging dangerously close to losing his chill.

Then, on Friday, Chowder calls.

It happens late in the afternoon. It’s beautiful out— it has been all week, warm and temperate like the summer’s day in that sonnet that, at this point, is kind of mocking him— but he hasn’t been out of his building today. Work day hours are over, or at least they should be, but Derek is still hunched over his desk, with a journal, copious pencils, and two separate empty coffee mugs clustering around his computer, hands buried in his hair, groaning at a Word document harboring a grand total of twenty-five senseless words.

When his phone starts vibrating, it scares the shit out of him. It’s on the charger next to his laptop, but turned face-down, for minimal distraction purposes. He jerks up and shakes himself out— was he dozing just now?— and goes to see who’s calling.

On the screen, he’s greeted by a still of Chowder’s metal-mouthed smile. The contact picture is practically vintage, taken on the ice after a game during their second year at Samwell.

Wait… why is Chowder calling? Sure, he’s been posting on social media, but Derek is pretty sure the whole idea of a honeymoon is to be alone with your new spouse.

Whatever. If he’s calling, there must be a reason for it. Derek picks up. “C, you had better have a good reason for calling me while you’re on your  _ literal honeymoon _ .”

“ _ Nursey _ !” The exact smile from the picture is in Chowder’s voice. His braces may be gone, and he may have swapped a Samwell jersey for an NHL one— but the smile never changes. “It’s  _ Friday _ .”

“ _ Oh _ .” Derek pauses for too long, pressing his face into his hand. His laptop’s luminescent screen is burning a radioactive hole in his brain. “But dude. You’re previously occupied. I didn’t—”

“It’s tradition,” Chowder insists, and that it is. Since they graduated, they haven’t missed a weekly phone call. They fall regularly on Fridays around this time. But Derek didn’t exactly expect Chowder to feel like he had to uphold that tradition for his sorry, single best friend when he was away on his honeymoon. “How could I not call you?”

“Chow…” Derek chuckles. “Shouldn’t you be fraternizing with Mickey Mouse?”

“I got to meet Mickey Mouse!” His excitement is tangible. “And Donald, and Goofy— and even, oh my God, Nursey, I saw  _ Darth Vader  _ running around today and I didn’t get to meet him because he was leaving but I’m totally going back tomorrow—”

“If you don’t get a picture with Stitch I’m literally never talking to you again.”

Chowder laughs. “I’ll track him down for you.”

“Bet.” Derek pauses and leans back in his desk’s swivel chair, then— fuck it— closes his laptop and puts his feet up on the desk. He tilts himself as far back as physically possible without snapping the bottom. “So… what’s up? How’s the most magical place in the country or whatever they call it?”

“It’s called the happiest place on Earth,” Chowder replies, and then he lets out a sigh that can only be characterized as dreamy. “Nursey… it’s  _ amazing _ . I couldn’t think of a better way to spend this week. It’s, like, there’s happy people everywhere! And I’m so happy! And Cait is so  _ beautiful _ , and—”

Derek smiles. It’s hard not to. His best friend is the purest, kindest human being alive. “Tell me about it.”

So he does. Chowder gives him the up and down of the week, from all the legendary rides he’s ridden to the snacks he’s tried to the pins he and Caitlin are collecting that represent all their favorite things about Disney. He tells him how he accidentally got lost at the Finding Nemo pavillion because he was distracted by the stingray and didn’t hear Caitlin say that she was going to meet him outside the bathroom, and how they rode the Haunted Mansion at 10:30 PM and he was a little scared but don’t tell Caitlin because she wasn’t scared at all, and she’s  _ amazing _ , Nursey, can you believe she’s really my  _ wife _ ???

There are stories aplenty, and it’s clear Chowder is over the moon. Derek is truly, wholly, so happy for him. In the moment— fleeting as it may be— the stresses of writing and getting his shit together are miles away.

But then Chowder pauses. He lets out a long, exhilarated breath, then says, “So what about you? How’s your week?”

Derek feels the spirit of life leave him, like he’s dying onstage in a play. He lets out a groan and tilts his chair way back again, flipping his head back to stare at the opposite wall upside down. “It’s fine.”

“Yeah?” Chowder doesn’t sound convinced. “Doesn’t sound fine.”

“It’s not important.” Derek closes his eyes. All the blood is rushing to his head. He may fall backwards out of the chair, but, like, whatever. “Everything is chill.”

“Liar,” Chowder replies. “C’mon, what’s going on?”

“C,” Derek says. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“But you sound down.”

Leave it to Chowder to call during the happiest week of his life to probe out Derek’s problems. He figures it’s better to be honest than to leave him worrying and wondering. “It’s not… there’s no  _ real _ issue, y’know? I’m just having writer’s block.”

“Aw, Nursey.” Now Chowder sounds sympathetic. “Still? Didn’t you say—”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Derek mumbles, groaning again. “Yes, I was having it in the spring. And yes, I’m still having it. I thought it’d go away by now.”

“I’m sorry,” he replies. “That totally sucks. I wish I could help you with it somehow. Do you think I could—”

“There’s nothing you can do, bro.” Derek smiles a little, but it’s a pinched, sad thing. “It means a lot that you want to, but— it’s just this weird thing I have to work out with myself.”

“Well…” Chowder pauses. “Did something happen this week that made you start thinking about it more?”

Already busted. Chowder can read him like a book, but then again, maybe he’s just being a little bitch about all of this, and it’s more obvious than he thinks. “I met with my agent on Tuesday.” His head is starting to pound from the upside-down, so he sits up again and spins around in the chair. “She essentially told me to get my shit together, but, like, in a polite and professional way.”

“Aw.” Now there’s a frown in Chowder’s voice. “ _ Man _ . Nursey. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he insists. “It’ll come back to me eventually. Writing is what I  _ do _ .”

But even saying that feels like an empty promise. Of course he’ll always be a writer. But lately, it’s seeming like the quality of art that that statement holds will dwindle the longer he stays in this slump.

He hears Jayda’s voice in his head.  _ Derek, the last thing I want for you is a sophomore slump.  _ Little does she know he’s already pretty much having one.

“There’s gotta be something you can do to help yourself feel better,” Chowder says. Leave it to him to be determined to help everybody, all the time. “I mean… maybe you’re lonely! Or—”

“I’m not lonely,” Derek retorts, maybe a little too quickly, and his empty apartment seems to echo the words.

“Well— okay.” Chowder is quiet for a second, contemplating across the phone line. Then he comes up with, “Maybe you need a change of scenery!”

“A change of scenery?” Derek looks out the window. These are some of the longest days of the year, so the sun hasn’t even started to set on the city yet. His corner of uptown is quieter than, say, Times Square, but the world outside is still a symphony of city noise and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “But I love the city.”

“I don’t mean  _ moving _ ,” Chowder laughs. “I mean a vacation! Take it from me! I was feeling all weird a couple weeks ago, because I missed hockey, and my friends on the team, and plus I missed you, and I was getting ready for the wedding but just wanted Cait to be my  _ wife _ already, and it was getting me stressed out! And then we got married, and came  _ here _ , and it’s, just— I feel like I could take over the whole world! I feel like I’ll never have to need anything again in my whole life.” He pauses to take in a breath. This man runs on constant overdrive. Derek doesn’t know how he does it. “Sometimes you need to go somewhere to feel different.”

It’s inspiring, at least the way Chowder is telling it— but when he tries to think of a change of scenery that could be nearly as invigorating for his artist’s brain as ‘Disney World with your brand new wife’ is for Chowder, he comes up short. He leans his head into his hand and says, “I dunno, C. It’s a chill idea, but… I don’t really know where I could go.”

“Aw, c’mon. There’s gotta be somewhere,” Chowder replies. “You could come down to Florida! We could hang out!”

Derek snorts. “I’m not crashing your honeymoon.”

“What if you come out to visit in San Jose when we get home?”

“I was just in San Jose. It didn’t fix my problem.”

“Huh.” Chowder pauses. “You’re right.”

There’s a silence between them. Derek gathers a handful of stray pencils— useless artifacts of a once more productive life, at the moment— yes that’s dramatic but _ he deserves it, okay _ — and drops them into the Samwell mug on his desk he uses to store writing utensils. They land with a series of hollow  _ clack _ s, erasers on ceramic.

Then this weird thing happens. He’s studying the Samwell logo on the front of the mug— the seal and the big block letters against its maroon background, just sort of lost in the design, in the symbol of four years of his life, years he misses really fucking badly, if we’re being honest. He wore that name on a jersey, on many a sweatshirt. He tagged it in many a social media post. It was so much of his life.

And right as he’s doing that, Chowder says, “What about Samwell?”

Derek pauses. He leans back in his seat again. Is Chowder psychic? Quite possibly. “Samwell?”

“Yeah!”

“It’s summer.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you go take  _ classes _ ,” Chowder laughs. “I just mean the campus. Maybe it would feel good to just… sit on the quad?”

“I feel like it’s weird to just go sit on your old college’s quad.”

“Hey, they told us we’re always welcome as alumni.” Chowder pauses. “Besides… it’s where you wrote your first book. Maybe it’d help?”

This is accurate information. Derek weighs the possibility in his head. Drive up to Samwell… in search of a big break, one he may or may not find there? “It’s not the worst idea.”

“You should do it!” Chowder says. “Take a summer vacation. Go on a writer’s retreat at Samwell University.”

Derek laughs and echoes, “A writer’s retreat at Samwell.”

“C’mon!  _ Nursey _ . You should do it.” Chowder is now latched to the idea, and extremely enthusiastic. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Shit. That’s a really valid point, actually.

Also, Derek is sort of out of options.

Drive up to Samwell. Drive up to Samwell? A personal road trip to Samwell. See the place he first wrote the stuff that gave him his big break.

Derek looks out the window. New York City is alive and well on this buzzing summer night— and fully drained of inspiration.

Fuck it. Chowder’s right. What’s the worst that could happen?

“Okay,” he says, and he hears Chowder literally cheer in celebration. “You’re right. I have nothing to lose.”

“Yes!” he cries. “ _ Yes _ . I’m happy for you. I think this is just what you need.”

“It could be.” Derek shrugs. “I guess we’ll see. I’m willing to take your advice, at least.”

“ _ Cool _ . Or, actually, hold on; let me translate so you can understand—”

“Chill,” Derek says, in unison with him, and then they both laugh. He kicks back from his desk and stands up all the way. “Thanks, Chow. I’m glad you called me. And I promise I’ll look into it.”

“Got it,” he says. “And don’t thank me! What are best friends for?”

Derek grins, leans against the window. “I’m gonna hang up now so you can spend time with your wife.”

“In my defense,” Chowder replies, “she’s in the shower.”

“Dude!” he says. “You’re missing a prime opportunity.”

“Oh—  _ oh _ .” Chowder pauses. “You think so?”

Derek smirks. “It’s very likely.”

“I…” He trails off for a second. “I guess I’ll see, then?”

“Good plan,” Derek says. “I’ll talk to you later, C. Have a fun night.”

“I will!” Chowder is the sunshine incarnate. “Bye, Nursey.”

“Peace out.”

When the call disconnects, Derek watches out the window. Then he looks back to his desk, to the closed laptop, to the blank notebook, the Samwell mug.

_ Maybe you need a change of scenery. _

Well. Huh. Maybe so.

*

Somewhere, hundreds of miles north of New York City, the air shifts, clears way for a visitor who doesn’t yet know he’s coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sincerelyreidburke on tumblr! Come say hi. And don't be shy; leave a comment! Chapter 3 will bring the Time Travel Shit I promise in the summary.


	3. memory lane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, Mel here! This chapter has the first appearance of poetry, which is by my co-creator, hockeysometimes (if you're new to this WIP, I write the prose and she writes the poetry). Also.... buckle in, here come that promised time travel shit!

_ July 8th, 2021 _

It takes all of a week of planning.

He requests his vacation time off from his job— something he’s never used, so he figures he might as well start now— and blocks out two weeks for a makeshift writer’s retreat. On Friday, he texts Chowder.

_ yooooooooooooooooo _

_ big c _

_ guess what _

_ Hi nursey!!!!!! _

_ What s up!!!!! _

_ check it _

_ i took your advice _

_ i’m going on vacation _

_!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

_ Chowder liked a message you sent _

_ Chowder sent a GIF _

_ YES!!!! _

_ Im so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

_ You deserve this bro _

_ Chowder sent a GIF _

_ is that a shark hula hooping? _

_ YES :D _

_ You laughed at a GIF _

_ When are you going!!!! _

_ i’ll leave next thursday _

_ And where!! _

_ driving north _

_ gonna go see samwell _

_ and then _

_ Chowder loved a message you sent _

_ YAY _

_ maybe just spend some time in nature _

_ idk yet _

_ finna see what happens _

_ Will you keep me updated!! _

_ uh obviously _

_ Youre doing the right thing for yourself!!!!!!!!!! _

_ you did the convincing _

_ so ty for that _

_ Of course!!!! _

_ You don’t have to thank me! What are best friends for!! _

_ i guess you’re right _

_ but srsly thank you anyways _

_ You’re welcome nursey. _

_ how’s florida??? _

*

He also texts Jayda.

_ good morning legend, have an update for you _

_ i’m taking vacation off work to go on a little writer’s retreat up north. not sure where the road will lead me but hoping this will mean a development in the drafting process. i will keep you updated. _

_ also happy friday etc _

_ Glad to hear it Derek! Good luck! _

_ And happy Friday to you too (: _

*

Six days later, he packs the car and hits the road.

As a native New Yorker, he’s sort of opposed to driving as an institution. But he got a car the summer before his senior year at Samwell, and it came in handy for going back and forth at school. The drive between his apartment and Samwell’s gates is four hours and thirty-eight minutes (count them) in the ideal traffic conditions, and most of it is urbanized highway with too many people on the road. Derek makes his way out of the city on Thursday morning after breakfast at his favorite café in uptown. In the passenger’s seat of his little Honda is a duffel bag of clothes, notebooks, and various random items he’s deemed necessary to his trip of indeterminate length. He also has his messenger bag, because, well, obviously.

He takes I-95 up the coast. He hasn’t been back to Samwell since graduation day, but this is something he only realizes as he thinks about it, crossing over state lines into Connecticut and then Rhode Island and Massachusetts. There’s traffic the whole way there, basically, but there always is, and he’s well used to traffic given the conditions he lives and walks around in on a daily basis.

It takes the entire ride for the anxiety to start setting in. As he takes the exit off the interstate for Samwell, drives the road to the school he knows so well, an unwelcome panic creeps into his system, and he worries for a second that he forgot his medication in New York before distinctly remembering the moment he tucked it into the side pocket of his duffel bag.

Besides, what’s the worst that could happen if he did? Some anxiety? Big deal. It’s not like he’s never dealt with it on its own. In fact, he used to do that shit single-handedly, no therapy, no medication, no whatever. All he faced it with was several layers of very carefully crafted chill, a manufactured aspect to his personality that hides the actual Derek, who, as has already been noted, is maybe a human disaster.

Maybe he should write a book about  _ that _ .

But no, actually, maybe not. Sure, his first book had plenty on mental health, but it wasn’t nearly as heavy as it could have been.

There are certain memories, certain places, he chooses not to go to.

Samwell is about ten minutes off I-95, and though the town of Samwell is moderately sized, the campus is a world all its own. When he drives through the gates, a giant wave of nostalgia washes over him, and then he’s lost to the memories.

Sitting in a pile of leaves and writing on the quad in the fall. Trudging from his room to Faber in the dark for early morning skates, shaking the sleep from his head. Having a snowball fight outside the Haus with Chowder upon returning from winter break. Pulling an all-nighter in the library to finish his paper for EN 315 because he has a roadie this weekend and he won’t do shit for homework from Friday to Sunday. Drinking coffee and writing in the Haus kitchen on a Sunday morning. Winning the Frozen Four his senior year. Lifting Captain Chowder on his shoulders.

Graduating. Saying goodbye.

Well, if an onslaught of nostalgic inspiration is what he wanted, maybe this  _ was _ the place to come. But did he drive four hours just to get sad about the fact that he’s not in undergrad anymore?

Whatever. Only one way to find out.

He parks in one of the visitor lots at Faber, then leaves his car among only a few others and walks to the quad. The temperate air reminds him of spring finals season, maybe because he was never here for the peak-summer type of weather they’re having right now. Campus looks deserted without the flood of students he grew so used to while he lived here. There seems to be some kind of youth hockey camp going on at Faber, by the looks of a few temporary signs posted along walkways ( _ Norfolk Junior Bruins Summer Training _ ), but other than that… the place is dead.

But it’s not like he didn’t expect that. And besides, the alternative would be being surrounded by a bunch of  _ current  _ Samwell students, not the crowd he went here with. It’s only three years’ difference, but that’s a lot of difference.

He can’t go back in time. All he can do is try to piece something together, in this place he used to call home.

So he walks across the quad, sits down cross-legged on the warm green grass, and tips his face up to the summer sun. He pulls his impulse-purchase notebook out of his bag, finds his favorite pen.

Then he says a little prayer to the universe.  _ Give me something. Anything. _

And then… then he writes.

*

_ memory holds host to the never-ending depth of nostalgia _

_ washing in with a tidal pull _

_ yearning to draw back to four years of: _

_ a home away from home _

_ friends into family  _

_ blurry-eyed all-nighters, hazy and fueled by double edged coffee _

_ one last essay, _

_ then week’s end, _

_ and who’s buying on friday? _

_ ocean of thoughts, flow _

_ deep blue, white-capped into depths unknown by choice, _

_ bringing in the tide, revealing reminiscence _

_ autumn afternoons, basked in season’s last mention of the sun  _

_ wamed book pages flipped under fingers, _

_ a bed of drying oak leaves the perfect place to lounge and drift _

_ a last fleeting echo is brought to mind’s shore _

_ heart pounding celebration, _

_ remembrance of an ultimate goal, _

_ aching bodies, lungs working overtime, _

_ flung haplessly together _

_ solid gold hoisted high to an onlooking roar _

_ champagne sticks to your skin _

_ by and by thoughts return to the sea _

_ brought to shore by life’s ebb and flow of familiarity _

_ and if you’re not careful, you’ll be caught between: _

_ the seductive pull to _

_ s _

_ i _

_ n _

_ k _

_ sink deep into the waters of memory _

_ or to push back, _

_ against ripples of angry undertow _

*

It’s not his favorite thing he’s ever written, but it’s also not his least favorite. It takes him longer than it should, but once he thinks he has a handle on something coherent, he reads over his work, and, well… if nothing else, it’s a start.

What made his first book so good is its deeply personal nature, and the immediacy with which it poured from him when he started it. Writing lately has felt less like emptying himself onto the page and more like pulling teeth, but today’s work hasn’t been quite as excruciating. Maybe it’s like a reluctant haircut. Speaking of which— Derek pats at his curls. Maybe he could use one of those. His hair is a full-time job.

He probably should have thought of that before he left New York (and, by extension, the only stylist he trusts) for a two-week vacation, but whatever.

The day is long, but early evening creeps up on him, and it takes a rumble of his stomach to realize that he’s hungry. As he leaves campus for the day, he snaps a picture of the quad and texts it off to Chowder, who replies five minutes later.

_ Chowder loved an image you sent _

_ You made it!!!!!! _

_ I miss that place so much _

_ bro same. hard same. _

He checks into the Holiday Inn his parents used to stay at when they came to visit him at school (which didn’t happen that often, but whatever, who’s keeping track). His night’s sleep is mostly fitful, because, as it turns out, he’s grown accustomed to sleeping with near-constant muffled city noise from outside.

_ July 9th, 2021 _

What follows, on day two of his vacation, is a lot of wandering around Samwell— and not just the university, but the town, too, visiting places he knew and loved, getting lunch at that one Korean place that did amazing takeout for three-AM-weed-induced GrubHub calls.

It’s all good and fine, and he squeaks out a few more poems as the day goes on. But as it turns out, nostalgia does not fuel an entire manuscript. He’s driven all the way up to New England for nothing, if not reminders of what once was.  _ You stupid fucking idiot. _

He wonders if he should visit Andover.

But no, that’s a horrible idea. Andover did good things for his education and his hockey, but 90% of his human interactions in high school were less interesting than watching paint dry. White New England boarding school kids are a trip.

Instead, maybe he should hit the beach. Drive north for awhile, reach the seashore. He much prefers the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, but you don’t just get on a plane and go to Samoa on a moment’s notice. Also, it’s summer. The weather during Samwell school years was never quite beach weather, except when you got there for preseason, but that was always occupied with training.

Fuck it. Anything goes.

He packs his car and heads north.

*

Several hours later, Derek may or may not be lost.

First of all, it’s not his fault. He personally blames the fact that at some point near Boston, he put on the audiobook for one of the newest memoir releases he’s been dying to read, and it’s… several hours long, so it’s proven a bigger source of distraction than he thought it would. Also, it’s almost sort of easy to go into cruise control— literally and figuratively— once one gets past the busy stretch of I-95 near the city. Oh, sure, he’s  _ paying attention _ to the road— but not really enough to process where he is or how long he’s been driving.

It only occurs to him to care about this when the sky starts to darken. He lifts his phone to check the time— it’s just past seven, and although his audiobook is still going, that’s only thanks to the fact that it’s downloaded; the top left of his screen says there’s no service.

So there’s that. But the more urgent problem is that seven o’clock is, yeah, late when you’ve been driving since mid-afternoon, but not nearly late enough to warrant such a dark sky in the middle of July. Ahead of him on the highway, some murky, nasty-looking gray clouds are blocking out the sun.

Thunder rumbles in the distance. There’s a storm brewing.

And it doesn’t look promising. But there’s also the fact that he sort of has no idea where he is. The highway signs are few and far between, and with no service, his phone isn’t going to be any help. He slows just a little— he’s been doing 80 for who knows how many miles of open, monochromatic highway— and tries to hunt for any kind of mile marker, highway sign, or clue as to where he is.

This is what happens when you get distracted by an audiobook.

What state is he even in now? New Hampshire? He can’t remember passing any of the signs, or even any other cars on the road.

He drives along for what feels like at least a few more miles before there’s a development— in the form of it starting to rain. It comes all at once, like the sky is opening up, and with it comes much more frequent lightning, mixed with crackling thunder.

“Holy shit,” he says to nobody, turning his windshield wipers to their maximum speed. He slows further and tells the rain, “ _ Chill _ .”

The rain doesn’t listen. Instead, if anything, it gets worse. It’s dark as shit, and the visibility is awful. He’s doing fifty now, and wonders if he should pull over until it lets up. But how long until it lets up?

_ Crack _ — a bolt of lightning strikes too close for comfort, so close that its thunderclap is on top of it. “Fuck!” Derek jumps in his seat. This is bad. This is very, very bad.

And then, in the distance, a patch of green— oh,  _ chill _ , a road sign. He squints until he can read it through the sheets of rain.  _ Exit 34 1 Mile. Next Exit 17 Miles. _

He tries to do the math, but he’s an English student for a reason. How long will it take him to go 17 more miles? At least another half hour, right?

There are two town names on the Exit 34 sign, but he can’t read them very well in the rain.  _ G  _ something  _ H  _ something, then  _ B  _ something  _ H  _ something.

Wait… wait. Does that say Bar Harbor? Is he in fucking  _ Maine _ ?

_ Crack.  _ More thunder. He winces, turns down the volume on his audiobook. Wherever the hell he is, he should get off the highway, before the storm eats his car alive. He can’t write his book if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere in Buttfuck, New England.

Blissfully, Exit 34 approaches. He signals— which is hilariously useless, because there’s no one else on the road— and takes the off-ramp. Almost immediately, he feels swallowed by the masses of conifer trees and high boulders on either side of the road. The rain pelts at his windshield, and he puts on his high beams.

His audiobook fizzles, like there’s a bad radio signal, but that makes no sense, because it’s on bluetooth audio. He messes with the volume a little, but then it’s all static.

What the hell? He turns over his phone in the cup holder. There’s still no service, and it looks like the audio file is still playing. Why isn’t it working?

But then a flash of lightning sort of reminds him—  _ oh. Bet it’s the storm. _ He puts down his phone and concentrates on the road, which is a narrow, winding thing. It’s a highway exit, so it has to lead to at least some kind of civilization, right?

As he passes under an overpass, the static sound through the speakers cuts out completely. It’s an eerie, pervasive silence, punctuated only by the drumming of the rain. He tries the regular radio to fill it, but there’s nothing coming through from there, either. Also, his presets are all his favorite New York stations, and they sure as shit don’t reach up here.

Whatever. It’s chill. It’s fine. He’ll find somewhere to stop for the night, wait for the storm to pass, and figure out where he is.

His phone, meanwhile, has completely shut itself off. He figures he must have run the battery down.

And holy shit, he does  _ not  _ feel well. Has he had this headache the whole time, or is it just coming on? Is it the thunder? Maybe the curvy road is making him nauseous.  _ Fuck.  _ He thinks for a second that he might pass out, but it’s a fleeting sensation. The headache persists.

Where is he? He’s an idiot. He shouldn’t have gotten off the highway in the middle of nowhere. He’s going to get snatched up by a serial killer, and then they’ll make a quirky podcast about him.  _ Fuck. Stupid ass.  _ He feels like a white girl in a horror movie.

He’s not sure how long he drives on the back road, but it’s awful driving. The rain persists, and so does the thunder and lightning. More than once, he debates pulling over to throw up, but the nausea only comes in waves. Is he sick? Maybe he got food poisoning from the Korean place. If he was going to have it, though, shouldn’t it have set in, like, sooner than seven hours later? Also, his head is pounding. Food poisoning isn’t supposed to give you a headache, right?

But finally, when he’s been at it for at least a few miles, there’s a development. Ahead on the road, he sees a tall structure on the right side of the road. It’s mostly a silhouette in the dark, but it rises above the trees— a water tower. And just beyond it, across the street, a building, its many windows flooded with warm yellow light.

_ Thank God.  _ It’s a sign of civilization. On his way toward the building, he passes a sign he can’t read, but looks like a town line marker.

Up closer, the building seems to be a house. It’s painted a pale yellow (or maybe it’s white; he can’t tell in the heavy rain), and it’s on the bigger side, but it has a parking lot, which, Derek figures, people don’t usually do at their homes.

And then the universe smiles down on him. Out front of the building, facing the road, is a wooden sign with a light on it that says  _ Bittle’s Bed and Breakfast _ . And under that,  _ Vacancy _ .

Praise every god in existence. It’s a place to sleep.

He pulls into the lot, which is sparsely populated with a few old-looking cars, and rests his forehead against the steering wheel for a few seconds after he shuts off his engine. His headache is persistent, and he’s not looking forward to walking across the lot in that rain, but also, it doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon, and going inside means, potentially, a warm bed and a shower.

So he grabs his overnight bag and his messenger bag, opens the car door, and books it across the lot in the rain.

He makes it across to the front steps of the inn in record time, but as a result, he discovers that,  _ yo _ , it’s freezing out! What the fuck? It’s the middle of July!

There’s a small overhang over the front door, so though his mad dash from his car has soaked him a little, he’s safely out of the rain’s line of fire when he goes to knock. The door is painted a questionable shade of teal, and there’s an artificial-looking flower wreath hanging on it. The doorbell looks old, and likely not to work, but he’s debating ringing it just as the front door swings open.

The man who greets him is short, white, and probably around his age, with blond hair and a salmon button-down shirt. He looks like he was plucked right off a yacht belonging to one of his Andover classmates, but his demeanor— or at least the most early impression of it— doesn’t fit the bill; he flashes an immediate, warm smile.

“Hi,” Derek says, but that’s all he gets out before the guy starts talking.

“Oh,  _ Lord _ ! It’s really raining out there, ain’t it?” The guy’s thick Southern drawl doesn’t match his appearance, or the region they’re in, for that matter. He opens the door all the way to usher Derek inside. “You come on in, honey. You lookin’ for a place to stay?”

Derek lets out a long, relieved breath, and he crosses the threshold to the warm and dry indoors. “That would be extremely chill, thank you.”

“Of course,” the guy replies. He closes the door firmly behind him, then says, as if talking to the rain, “Can’t let that in here. We try to keep it warm.”

Derek surveys the room he’s walked into. Directly ahead of him is a small front desk, armed with a vase of tulips (tulips in July?), a retro-looking cash register, and a rotary phone the same pale yellow color as the house’s exterior. The retro look, though, doesn’t stop at the desk— the wallpaper sports awkward cream and blue geometric patterns, and the carpet beneath his feet looks vintage. One end of the space opens up to what looks like a sitting area, where a young couple are having tea and smoking— wait, smoking inside?— and the other side seems to lead to a kitchen.

Also, speaking of a kitchen, it smells amazing in here. It’s a baked-goods scent, he thinks. Maybe pie crust? Fresh bread?

Salmon shirt guy claps his hands, then walks around to the other side of the desk. “Now,” he says, “I have a few rooms open, three upstairs and one down here, and oh— goodness, where are my manners? I’m Eric.” He holds out his hand, so Derek shakes it. “I’m the owner. Welcome in.”

“Thank you,” Derek replies, as a droplet of rain drips into his eye from one of his curls. His hair must look awful right now. All at once, he realizes he’s shivering. “I’m Derek. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” Eric says, then flips open a guestbook next to the rotary phone. “And where are you visiting from?”

“Oh— New York,” Derek says. “Which, actually, where am I? I got sort of lost in the storm.”

“New York! Wow.” Eric has huge, dark eyes, and they widen with this remark. “Well, that’s a long way to go to get all the way up here. You’re in Good Haven. Just a few miles off the Gulf of Maine.”

“Maine,” Derek echoes.  _ Shit _ , that’s far from home. How long was he driving? “Wow. I didn’t even realize— alright, thanks for telling me.” He pauses. “And I’ll take any room that’s available.”

Eric gets him situated in what he calls his coziest room, which is up a winding staircase and at the end of a hallway. The decor inside is just as dated as the rest of the inn— the curtains match the monochromatic yellow bedspread, and the carpeting has an oceanic-looking blue and teal pattern. There’s a small desk next to the big window with another rotary phone on it, and the off-white walls look like they’re overdue for a paint job.

Still, it’s charming. It’s a space to rest, and he’s grateful. When he sets his bag on the bed and turns to Eric, saying, “This looks great,” Eric looks immensely proud.

“Are you hungry?” Eric asks him, as he’s hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. “I’ll admit I do feel bad, ‘cause we already had dinner, but if you’re hungry I can fix you up something real quick, no problem. Or do you want some pie? I just made a fresh rhubarb pie this morning.”

As tempting as pie sounds, Derek’s lingering nausea doesn’t agree with the suggestion. “I already ate,” he lies, “but thank you.”

“Alright. Well, I’ll leave you, then,” Eric says, then pauses in the doorway. “But you give me a holler if you change your mind, alright? Bathroom’s the door to your left, closet’s dead ahead. I’m just downstairs if you need anything at all.”

“Thanks very much,” Derek says, and then he’s gone.

Derek sinks down onto the edge of the bright yellow bed. The mattress is soft, and so are the blankets, which must be what Eric meant by cozy. After a second, he tips back all the way and flops out across it, closing his eyes like that’ll stop his headache.

It’s been a long, eventful day.

And a good day, in a lot of ways. He’s here. He’s on vacation. He’s being a semi-functional human being. But he also somehow made his way all the way to  _ Maine  _ for no other reason than gross negligence. He wonders vaguely how far north he is.

He digs into his pocket for his phone, then realizes he left it in the car, in his rush to avoid the rain. The normal Derek would go and get it— social media is a necessity, especially when unwinding after a long day— but tonight’s Derek is too tired and wet and cold to even think about going back out into that thunder-fest.

As if it heard him, the thunder grumbles outside. At least it’s a little more distant now, taking a backseat to the torrential rain.

Derek lays in bed for a few more minutes before he decides he can’t sleep without showering. What happens next is a series of semi-robotic actions, just to get himself into bed. Thankfully, the bathroom is clean and not sketchy at all, if maybe a little weirdly decorated. He does skincare and tackles his hair, then meanders back into the room, hazy from the headache that hasn’t gotten much better.

Sometime much earlier than his usual bedtime, he flops back into the yellow bed. He’s too lazy to see exactly what time that is.

Before he knows it, he’s down for the count.


	4. on the town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you finally get to meet Dex in this one, plus several other characters, too.

_ Day 1 In Good Haven _

Morning comes slowly, and when it dawns, Derek wakes to the smell of something delicious inexplicably wafting up the stairs and into his room. If last night was any indicator, the smell of Eric’s baked goods is a pervasive entity in this entire bed & breakfast.

He rolls over in the big yellow bed and blinks the haze out of his eyes. Slivers of soft golden light leak their way in from the window, but the curtains are drawn, so they struggle to fill the room with sun. He’ll open them up… in a minute, he thinks, and then rolls onto his stomach and presses his face to the pillow.

Derek has never been much of a morning person.

At least his headache and the nausea are gone, or at least they seem to be. Also, what  _ is  _ that smell? He’s weighing the benefits of getting up to investigate versus staying in bed because he can when he hears footsteps outside his door, then a gentle knock.

“Derek?” Eric’s voice is mid-volume, like it’s not meant to wake him but meant to get his attention if he is awake. “Are you awake yet?”

“I—” He tries to speak, but his voice is a sleepy rasp, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I just woke up.”

“Oh, alright!” Eric sounds cheery and far more awake than Derek feels. “I just wanted to let you know there’s breakfast downstairs. It’ll be here for awhile, but I just wouldn’t want you to miss another meal.”

“Oh— oh, chill.” He clears his throat again, props himself up on his elbow, and looks at the door. “Thank you,” he calls. “I’ll be downstairs soon.”

“Alrighty!” Eric says, and then his steps recede down the hall and the stairs.

Derek sits all the way up and runs his hands through his curls. How long did he sleep? What time is it? He’s going into his bag for his phone when he remembers it’s still in the car.  _ Oops.  _ It’s fine. He’ll get it before breakfast. The story of getting lost will entertain Chowder.

Also, wait. Is he going to stay here? He only vaguely remembers that he’s in Maine, and even so, he really has no idea  _ where _ in Maine. Maybe he should find out.

Maybe it’ll help him write.

He slumps himself out of bed, pads across the retro carpet, and pulls open the curtains. And then immediately fucking regrets that decisions, because Jesus  _ Christ _ , the sun is right in his eyes. He turns away from the blaze to regain his vision, cursing colorfully in ways he hasn’t done frequently since his hockey days. Fuck. Ouch.

When he can see again, he surveys himself. He’s for sure not presentable, but then again, it’s just breakfast at an inn. His movements are slow, but he eventually gets around to throwing on a pair of khakis and a blue v-neck t-shirt. He ties his sneakers and sneaks a glance at his hair in the bathroom mirror. It’s acceptable. And boom. Instant outfit.

He makes his way down the stairs with his car keys, bypassing the breakfast for now— it looks like most of the other guests, few as they are, are in the kitchen eating already. “I’ll BRB,” he tells Eric, who seems to be slaving away at the stove. “Forgot my phone in my car.”

Eric looks extremely confused by that statement for some reason, but Derek heads outside anyway.

Holy shit! It’s still cold out here. He rubs at his forearms as he crosses the lot to his car. In daylight, he can see that the water tower across the street is painted bright blue, and there are words wrapped around the top—  _ Good Haven _ , which he vaguely remembers as the name of this town from when Eric mentioned it to him last night. The inn sits on a corner flanked by a fork in the road Derek came in on; on the fork’s left side is posted a sign that points forward and advertises  _ DOWNTOWN _ . All he can see in that direction is forest, but that’s all there is in pretty much any direction, so whatever.

He unlocks his car and pulls his phone from the cup holder. It’s still dead, so he tucks it away and surveys the vehicle to make sure he didn’t leave anything else in here. The coast looks clear, and it’s cold as fuck, so he runs back to the door and careens himself into the warm of the indoors.

“Damn!” He ruffles himself at the door, closing it behind him. The guests in the kitchen are looking his way— apparently, his grand entrance has caused a minor disturbance to their breakfast. He realizes, with mild horror, that aside from an Asian woman who’s half of the couple from last night, he’s the only person of color in this building. “It’s cold out there,” he adds, as if to explain his outburst, then books it up the stairs.

In his room, he digs through his bag for his charger, then plugs his phone in and heads down to breakfast— with a cardigan this time. It’s a good thing he’s a chronic overpacker.

The kitchen is bigger than it looks from the front room; its doorway opens to a cooking area with a separate space entirely for dining. The appliances look old and well-loved, and there’s a painting mounted on the wall, a still life of a bunch of baked goods. It has gorgeous lighting. He wonders if Eric had it commissioned.

On the table, Eric has laid out a modest but delicious-looking breakfast spread, featuring two quiches, fruit salad, bread with a jar of jam that looks homemade, and various beverages. Derek’s stomach growls, out of the blue. He had no idea how hungry he was.

“Now, Derek,” Eric tells him, “if there’s something you want that you don’t see here, don’t hesitate to ask, and I can whip it up for you. Ya hear?”

“Oh, no— no, no worries,” he replies. “This looks perfect. Did you make this all yourself?”

Eric flashes a prideful grin. His cheeks are just the slightest big pink, but he’s not wearing the color this morning the way he was last night. Actually, he’s in an apron; it has fruit patterns all over it and looks old. “Well, aside from growing the fruit, I did,” he says, and Derek chuckles. Then Eric turns to the other guests— there are seven of them in all, the couple from last night plus a much older-looking couple, and two parents with a baby. “Y’all, this is Derek. He checked in last night.”

Derek flashes a peace sign. “Sup.” The Asian girl gives him a nod, and her mustachioed boyfriend (husband?) takes a drag from his cigarette.

“You help yourself,” Eric tells him, with extreme mom energy, so he does.

He assembles a plate with two slices of quiche and a heap of fruit, then makes himself a cup of coffee and sits near the young couple, since they look like the most approachable people here. Aside from the smoking, which is nasty, but he literally hotboxed his apartment last week, so, to each their own or whatever.

“Where you from?” asks the girl, once they exchange pleasantries. She’s wearing a leather jacket, which is honestly powerful as fuck.

“New York,” Derek replies. “City, not state. How ‘bout you?”

“Boston,” says the guy, then grins. “How’d you get all the way up here?”

Derek gazes at his plate for a second, then shrugs, tipping back in his chair. “I’m on vacation.” He pauses. “How did  _ you _ guys get here?”

The girl gestures to the stove, where Eric has started something of a baking explosion. His current project is peeling apples. “We know Eric from college.”

“Oh, chill.”

“I’m Larissa.” She extends a hand for him to shake, so he does. Her husband— not boyfriend, he notes, after seeing they both wear wedding rings, introduces himself too. “Call me Shitty.”

Derek snorts loudly enough to get a judgey look from the old people. “Sounds like there’s a story behind that name.”

Larissa grins at him, then tells Derek, “There is.”

The quiche is fucking  _ amazing _ . Derek wipes out the first piece in what feels like a few seconds flat, then takes the second slower, to savor the taste. Larissa and Shitty (lol) make friendly small talk, and Eric mills between guests to ensure everybody is happy.

“Dude,” he says when Eric comes by their end of the table. “This quiche is the  _ shit _ .”

Eric cocks his head. “I… beg your pardon?”

“I mean it’s good,” he adds hastily. “It’s really good. Wait, also— how much for the night? Sorry I didn’t ask yet.”

“Oh,” Eric replies, leaning against an empty chair. “I usually ask ten dollars, but if you’re pressed for cash it’s no problem, honey—”

Derek is sure he hasn’t heard him right. “Ten dollars?!”

“It’s too much, isn’t it?” Eric hangs his head. “How about eight?”

“No, no, no— not too much,” he says. “Too little. There’s no way I can pay you ten dollars.”

“Well, of  _ course _ you can,” Eric replies, and now he sounds borderline scandalized. “That’s the going rate and I don’t expect a penny more.”

“But—” He looks to Larissa and Shitty for help, but they don’t seem nearly as fazed as he is. There’s no way he can pay  _ ten  _ dollars for his room. Is this place mad sketchy and he’s just not seeing it? His room was perfectly clean, and the food is delicious. “But that’s so cheap. I can’t— I have to pay you more than that.”

They go back and forth for several minutes. Eric gets up in arms about it, and he won’t budge until Derek pulls a twenty from his wallet and tells him he’ll pay no less than this. Eric kind of looks like he wants to kick his ass, but in that aggressively polite way he seems to carry himself with at all times (if the past twelve hours are any indication).

Ten dollars. This guy is crazy. Maybe he’s secretly a serial killer, and he lures people in with his prices and delicious food.

Whatever. He should use the money to invest in new appliances. The oven looks like it’s two uses away from crapping out, and that’s Derek’s opinion, knowing jack shit about mechanics.

After breakfast, he heads back up to his room and digs his laptop from his messenger bag. He should really check his email, and maybe type up the stuff he wrote at Samwell. Maybe he can send Jayda bits and pieces of his progress as he goes along.

But then arises a problem. The laptop won’t power on. He has his charger, but he swears he left his apartment with the thing fully charged. What’s weirder is that his phone still won’t turn on, either, even after charging for the whole 45 minutes he spent at breakfast. What are the odds both of his electronics kicked the bucket at the same time? Both of them are pretty new.

He wonders if the storm fucked with their configuration. Maybe that’s the same reason his car radio lost it. He would’ve known if he got, like, struck by lightning or something, right? He, uh, definitely wouldn’t be alive?

Well, whatever. If they’re not working by tonight, he’ll figure something out.

In the meantime, he got himself all the way here, so he figures he might as well look around town.

*

“You’re about twenty minutes out from Bar Harbor,” Eric says at the front desk, which means virtually nothing to him, but he keeps paying attention anyway. “If you drive past here and follow the signs to downtown Good Haven, you’ll be there in two miles. To get to the coast, you’ll want the right side of the fork, where the water tower is. You’ll turn right for Bar Harbor after about three miles.”

The beach sounds promising, but maybe not before he gets a bearing on the actual town he’s in. “And if I don’t want the coast?”

“Downtown’s your best bet,” Eric replies. “It’s big enough down there, got everything you could need, really. If you pass the police station, you’ve gone too far.”

“Okay,” he says, and Eric hands him a small map.

“Happy exploring!”

It’s still cold as balls outside. Derek resorts to cranking the heat in his car, in the  _ deadass middle of July _ , which, honestly, what the fuck.

But it’s whatever. It’s chill. He’s armed with his notebook, his messenger bag, and his pens. He’s going to get some shit done today. And he’s going to figure out where the hell he is.

So he sets out toward downtown.

*

For a few minutes, he thinks he somehow took a wrong turn. He follows the signs that point to downtown, but it takes a little driving through the woods before he starts to see signs of life beyond Eric’s inn. When they come, first in the form of houses few and far between, then, half a mile later, a clear downtown area, he breathes a sigh of relief. There  _ is _ a whole town here.

His discoveries include:

\- A series of quaint shops and businesses, most of which look independent; there isn’t a chain in sight

\- The fact that all the cars here are really old, for some reason?? He feels so out-of-place in his 2017 Honda

\- A public library that doesn’t have computers in it?

\- Well, at least it has books. He can’t find any of his favorites, but he ends up sitting incorrectly in a chair with a vintage first edition of  _ Gatsby _ for, like, an hour and a half. The librarian looks like she’s judging him for his seating position, but, like, whatever, lady.

\- A crowded-looking diner, with a tall sign on its outside that says  _ Annie’s  _ and looks like it goes neon in the dark. It’s painted seafoam green, but in dire need of a fresh coat. He’d go inside, but he’s still full from Eric’s breakfast.

\- Is that a drive-in movie theater?

\- A hardware store with a shit-ton of plants outside it, like it’s been invaded by a nursery.

\- Ha. Nursery.

\- A modestly sized public park, where he takes a mid-afternoon walk. It’s no Central Park, but it’s host to a pond full of ducks and a few nicely placed benches. There are daffodils and tulips blooming everywhere, and it’s still a little chilly. He writes a haiku about ducks ( _ you dance in the pond / but how can you swim when it’s / cold as fuck out here _ ), and then a second, better one ( _ they walk in a row / seeking that which can hurt them / which is bread, of course _ ) and then gives up because, on second thought, both of them suck major ass, so then he writes a completely unrelated haiku ( _ cold wind in july / what led you to follow me / wherever i am _ ), and likes that one better.

\- Okay, one more ( _ tiny, tight-knit town / you’ve called me here through tempest / but what do you bring? _ )

\- Then he goes back to his free verse.

It’s mildly successful writing. He’s taken notes on his surroundings all day long, and by the time evening creeps up on him, he’s satisfied with his progress, having filled five double-sided pages in his depression notebook. This is more than he’s been able to do at once in awhile, especially given the fact that he doesn’t hate what he’s written, can look at it without wanting to die, even. The ambience of the little downtown makes for good writing, and the weather wasn’t even that great today, so he’s kind of curious to find out how it goes when you add some sunshine and some vibes.

This is a start, and, like, honestly? He’ll take it.

*

After a shower at nightfall, he sits down to dinner with Eric, Larissa, and Shitty. Either the other guests have gone out to eat, or they’re already checked out, but Derek prefers this group to the company of the judgey white people, to be honest.

Eric makes a chicken-fried steak and actually dines with them, which could not be said of breakfast-time Eric. The difference is that the apple pies he was starting on this morning are all done, and there are three of them, sitting flawless on the counter like they’ve been plucked straight out of a cooking magazine. Eric has a record player— another vintage feature in this place that’s in perfect condition— and he’s spinning what sounds like Aretha Franklin at a low volume while they eat.

They’re talking about his aimless trip around town when he remembers his electronics debacle. “Oh— Eric, also, I meant to ask. Is there some kind of a technology repair place around here? Something’s wrong with my phone, and I don’t know how it happened.”

Eric furrows his brows. “The phone in your room?”

“No,” Derek says, “ _ my _ phone.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Eric replies, blank-faced. “Your phone at home?”

“No, no. Just my own phone. My cell phone.” Derek pauses, rephrases. “Maybe there’s, like, an Apple store around?”

“Why would there be a store that sells only apples?”

Derek squints at Eric. Is he living under a rock? He looks to Shitty and Larissa for help, but they look similarly confused. “I mean the brand.”

“I’m… not quite sure what you’re talking about, hon,” Eric says, “but if something’s broken, you should talk to Will at the diner. He can fix most anything.”

While he chews on a forkful of Eric’s collard greens, he weighs the merits of going to seek someone out for his phone rather than handling it himself, but then again, he’s done everything in his capacity, and he doesn’t want to get lost looking for a place to fix it with no GPS if there’s someone in town who can do it for him. Plus, he really wants to send Chowder his duck haikus. And ask how his trip home from Disney was, since he’s flying home today. “Will at the diner, you said?” Eric nods. “Okay… and that’s the diner downtown. Annie’s?”

“That’s it,” he says. “Only one in town.”

“The manager’s a riot,” Larissa comments.

Eric rolls his eyes. “The manager is my dear cousin.”

Shitty snickers a little, like he knows the family drama that so obviously lies behind Eric’s eyeroll. Then, as he’s recovering from his salt, Eric adds, “Oh— but on second thought, Derek, Will doesn’t usually work Sundays.”

“Oh,” Derek says. “Okay. So I should try on Monday?”

“I’d say it’s still worth a shot tomorrow,” Eric says. “You never know.”

“Right. Chill.” He pauses. “I’ll try there tomorrow, then.”

*

_ Day 2 In Good Haven _

He tries to get over to the diner in a timely manner the next morning, but his biological clock despises waking up early, so he rolls in around ten (after not being able to resist swiping a muffin from Eric in the kitchen, because holy shit, that smells delicious).

Annie’s Diner, as it turns out, is  _ the place  _ to be on a Sunday morning, and Derek probably should have planned ahead for this. It’s full of people, a lot of whom look like they just came from church, if their Sunday best is any indication. (Who wears a suit and a hat to church? Apparently every man ever in Good Haven, Maine.)

But also, it’s retro as fuck inside (like the rest of the town, for some reason), complete with a checkerboard floor, a jukebox, and red leather booths and barstools. When he walks in, he’s greeted by a small line at the host stand, so he leans against the wall until it’s his turn. In the entryway, there’s a framed black-and-white photo of a young woman standing outside the front doors of the property. She has a baby in her arms, and her outfit looks like it was pulled straight from the movie  _ Grease _ . But then again, so does the whole diner. Maybe that’s the point.

When he gets to the front of the small line, he’s greeted by a man in a bowling shirt, and a hat that does not succeed in containing the cowlicks of his gold hair. He has greenish-gray eyes, and he looks enough like Eric for Derek to infer that this must be his cousin. He grabs a menu and flashes a dazzling grin. “Table for one, sugar?”

Huh. Maybe not, actually. No Southern accent. “Actually, I’m looking for someone,” Derek replies. “Are you Will?”

The guy snorts a little, then fully laughs. “Wait, you asked if  _ I’m _ Will?”

“Is that a no?”

“No, sir.” The guy swipes at his cowlick, but it pops right back up. “I’m Kent. Will’s my esteemed colleague.” Derek almost laughs, and Kent continues, “What do you need with him?”

“Oh, chill, yeah, I’m staying at the inn, with Eric?” He phrases this last part as a question, unsure if Kent will know who he means.

But Kent nods. “Uh-huh. Sweetest Southern belle I know.”

His laugh threatens him again, but he’s not sure if it’ll be offensive if he does. “Anyway, my phone’s acting up,” he says, “and Eric said Will knows how to fix things. Pointed me here.”

“Your phone?” Kent suddenly looks skeptical, and he looks Derek up and down like he’s searching for it. “Is it… here?”

“Yeah.” Derek draws it from his pocket, holds it out to Kent. “Right here.”

Kent’s eyes widen, and he surveys the perfectly normal iPhone X with the likes of someone who is seeing an alien. “What in…”

“What?” Derek turns it over. His case is brown and leathery.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kent mutters, folding his arms. “That’s just about the weirdest contraption I’ve ever…”

He trails off. What the fuck is up with these people and phones.

“Whelp!” Kent claps his hands abruptly. “Eric’s right, I’m not your guy. But Will might be. He’s working the bar, buuuuut…” Kent cranes his neck in the direction of the diner bar, where there are a few guests seated. “... also bussing tables at the same time, so don’t be deceived if he’s not right there. Just wait for the big handsome ginger.” Kent meets his eyes again and winks at him, his grin resurfacing. “He don’t talk much.”

“Cool,” Derek says. He likes this guy’s vibes, he decides. “Thank you.”

He makes his way across the checked floor, dodging bustling waitstaff and random people up and walking, until he reaches the bar, and then he spots his man— Will  _ is _ behind it, but his back is to Derek, so he can’t see him well. He’s wiping down the countertop on the other end, and all Derek can see is the back of his blue plaid shirt, plus a shock of red hair under a hat that matches the rest of the waitstaff’s.

He slides into the stool on the far left end and waits a second, setting his bag on the floor beneath him. The bar is long and its top is mint-green; it’s home to napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers, a modestly sized tip jar full of spare change. At the same time he sits down, Will finishes cleaning and straightens up. He’s tall at his full height, but no bigger than Derek, by the looks of it.

Then he turns, and catches sight of him.

Okay. So Kent was right. He  _ is _ handsome, but in a way a white guy shouldn’t be. He’s big and stocky, with a face full of freckles that don’t end on his face; they cover his forearms where his shirtsleeves are rolled up. He has lanky limbs and huge hands; he’s still holding his cleaning rag. His hair is short and tidy under the hat, and, yeah, it’s totally firetruck ginger.

But all this to focus on, and Derek’s attention zeroes in on one place and one place only— his ears. They’re  _ massive _ , and the hat he wears isn’t doing him any help, given the fact that they stick out from under it like he’s Mickey Mouse or something.

It should be ugly, but it’s not. He’s kind of super fucking gorgeous.

And then he speaks. “Morning,” he says, a total deadpan. “Can I get you anything?”

“You’re Will,” Derek blurts, before he can think ahead and realize that this is a sort of creepy thing to say upon first meeting a person.  _ Hey, I’ve never seen you before, but check it. I know your name. _

In response, Will scrutinizes him. His resting expression isn’t quite bitchface, but it’s far on the stone-cold side of neutral. “I’m sorry,” he says after a second. “Do I know you?”

All of Derek’s Regulations for Chill seem to flood back to him at that exact moment, and he stumbles over his next sentence. “Sorry, uh— no, you don’t know me. I’m, uh, I’m staying with Eric? At the inn?” Again, this earns a nod of recognition; it seems he’s the only inn-keeping Eric in town. “And my phone is broken,” Derek continues. “And Eric said to come find you at the diner, because you know how to fix things.”

He lets out all his breath at once.  _ 1-800-yikes.  _ That was the opposite of smooth.

But Will says, “Oh,” and he nods like this makes sense. He puts the rag he’s been using over his shoulder, still sort of wary, but maybe not completely standoffish.

Meanwhile, all at once, the absurdity of the situation dawns on Derek. Who tracks down a handyman  _ at his place of work _ to ask for help with fixing their phone?

“I don’t mean to bother you while you’re working,” he adds, but Will shakes his head as if to cut him off.

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” he says. “Eric’s right; I do fix things. I can help.”

“Oh. Chill.” Derek pauses. “Thank you.”

Will does another sweep of the bar, asking the other patrons if he can get them anything else, then makes his way back over to Derek’s spot, where he folds his arms. God, those forearms. That should not be legal on a guy with that many freckles. “So… you’re  _ phone  _ is broken?” Will says. “Do you have it with you?”

“Yeah.” He pulls it from his pocket again, then sets it on the bartop. “I do.”

Will knits his brows and stares down at the thing for a few seconds, his reaction every bit the confusion that Eric and Kent have both showed so far. “You call this a phone?”

“Uh, yeah?” His voice goes up on the  _ yeah _ , like he’s not sure it’s his phone, when really he is and he just feels like he’s being judged by Mr. Big Ears. “Obviously.”

“It doesn’t look like one,” Will replies, then sort of pokes it uselessly. “Where’s the cord? How does it connect?”

“The charger cord is in my hotel room,” Derek says, “but it’s not dead. I charged it all night. I think maybe something happened on Friday when I got caught in that big thunderstorm. Because my laptop also isn’t working.”

Will blinks like he’s just spoken to him in ancient Greek, then looks down to study his phone again. “I… do you mind if I pick it up?”

“Be my guest,” Derek replies.

What follows is a roughly seven-minute period wherein Will makes an earnest but ultimately unproductive attempt at figuring out a.) what Derek’s phone is, because apparently no one in this town has ever seen an iPhone before, and b.) what’s going on with it. His confusion is weird as fuck, but also, he’s trying, so when it’s clear that this isn’t going to lead anywhere successful, Derek stops him.

“Hey, actually,” he says, “don’t worry about it; I think it probably needs hardware work or something. Thank you for trying. I appreciate it.”

“I’m really sorry I couldn’t help,” Will says, and for all his guarded demeanor, this sounds sincere, like he feels truly bad.

“Oh, no worries; it’s chill.” Derek tucks his phone into his pocket again. “If it doesn’t show some sign of life by tomorrow, I figure I’ll try to find the nearest Apple store.”

“Apple store,” Will echoes, making it sound clunky. “Like an orchard? What would that have to do with phones?”

“No.” Derek squints at him. Is this guy for real? “Apple. Like the tech company? You’re the second person in twenty-four hours not to know what that is.”

Will watches him warily for a moment, and there’s a beat of silence. Then he takes a breath. “Can I get you something?” he asks. “Coffee?”

Derek sighs, picks up his bag from the ground, and zips his phone into it.  _ Fuck it.  _ “Well, it’s chill in here, so I might as well stick around, right?”

Will reaches under the bar on his side. “Is that a yes on coffee?”

He nods. “Sure.”

From underneath, he produces a cup-and-saucer set and sets it down at Derek’s spot like it’s his job— except oh, wait, it is. As he’s pouring the steaming stuff, he asks, “Cream or sugar?”

“Sugar, please,” Derek says, then takes a shot in the dark. “You don’t have soy creamer, by any chance, do you?”

Aaaaand Will just looks confused again. “Soy… creamer?”

“Y’know… non-dairy creamer?” Derek pauses. “It’s no biggie if you don’t. I just thought I’d ask.”

“I’m sorry,” Will says. “I can’t say I’ve heard of it. How could you have creamer without the dairy?”

Okay. That’s it. These people are fucking weird. He’s giving Will what probably looks like a pretty judgey stare when he accidentally meets his eyes, and…  _ yo _ . Every redhead he’s ever known has had blue or green eyes, cool tones to balance out the fire, but Will’s are just the opposite; they’re  _ amber _ . They’re shades of gold and orange mingled together, like he’s some comic book character with firebending powers, and like the rest of him, it’s attractive when it shouldn’t be. He tears his gaze away before he can thirst too hard. Holy  _ fuck _ . Sue him, this guy is hot.

“I’ll just do it black with sugar, then. Thank you.”

He could write a poem or two about those eyes.

*

He brought himself to Annie’s Diner, so he’s going to stay. He sets up camp at the bar, pulling his notebook and lucky pen out of his bag. This place has great ambiance, and he vibes with it. You know what? Yeah. He’s going to write an entire poem about ambience.

_ ambience _

_ you are sitting _

_ in a diner somewhere _

_ in anywhere, america _

_ it doesn’t matter where, because more or less they’re all the same _

_ a place like this speaks a language all its own _

_ it’s the language of familiarity _

_ of devotees sliding into booths well worn from use _

_ (they’ll have the usual, of course) _

_ of conversation carried over a black-and-white check floor _

_ (small town gossip is recyclable, _

_ different names in all the same places _

_ because really, _

_ when you live here, _

_ there’s nothing better to do, _

_ and maybe that’s sad but maybe that’s just because you know a world outside this town, _

_ but maybe, _

_ they don’t) _

_ it’s the language of traditional charm _

_ of vinyl bar stools spun restless at chrome counters _

_ of the unmistakable melodic hum of a neon sign in the window _

_ (Open Late) _

_ of refilled coffee and a search for disposable comfort _

_ of american optimism embodied in a glass case apple pie _

_ like if you stay put behind four clear walls, _

_ there’s no ugly in the world to be afraid of _

_ every place like this feels the same _

_ it withstands the test of time, like a haven all its own _

It’s the first of several poems that carry him into the afternoon. Something clicks in his brain, and the floodgates open, and he’s writing again. They’re not cringeworthy things pulled from the most reluctant recesses of his brain; they’re works of honest art. Oh, sure, they might need tweaking, but they’re  _ so much better  _ than anything he’s done in a solid several months.

And honestly? He’ll take it.

More than once, he catches Will giving him weird looks, which is judgey and annoying, but he seems like the uptight type (and that’s a shame, because he’s really fucking hot). He writes on anyway, and sometime in the afternoon, after several refills on his coffee, Will asks him if he wants anything to eat.

Derek flashes a grin. “What does the chef recommend?”

Will glances toward the place he’s been getting food to serve people, a big open window that leads to a kitchen in the back. He can make out a few figures bustling around back there; the closest one is an olive-skinned grill guy with French-braided flow fit for the Samwell roster.

Will takes a moment to answer, and when he does, it’s, “Well, I’m not the chef. But you can’t go wrong with the mushroom and onion omelet.”

“Bet,” Derek replies. “I’ll try it.”

Turns out it’s delicious.

He stays and writes for hours.


	5. will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are wonderful and I keep laughing every time someone makes a comment that's basically "oh Nursey, when will he realize something is wrong", because, honestly, mood. He's so smart but yet he's such an idiot. Anyway, the chapter after this one will address that question, but for now... let's spend some time with Dex.

Will Poindexter is a man of habit.

His life is a series of carefully crafted routines and regiments, as life should be, to keep everything in line. Said routines do not usually involve working on a Sunday, but sometimes that’s just how life is. Hours are hours, and Annie’s has been good to him for years; he started here when he was sixteen. He needs every shift he can get, if he’s being honest.

So when Denice called in sick, he took her Sunday morning one. It goes by quickly, even given the debacle with the curly-haired man and the thing he calls a phone. Jonathan shows up to relieve him of his work right before four o’clock, and looks surprised to see him. “Hiya, Will. Where’s Denice?”

“Sick,” Will replies, untying his apron. “She called in this morning.”

Jonathan is messing with his hat that’s part of their uniform; his daily feat is fitting it on his head. His hair is too big for it, and he usually ends up just leaving it off. Will sort of knows how he feels— he can never quite get his ears to stay put under there. “Is she okay?”

“I think so,” Will replies. He hasn’t actually seen Denice since Thursday, when they last worked together, and she seemed fine then. He has a weird relationship with most of his coworkers— he  _ guesses  _ they’re all his friends, but he doesn’t really see them much outside the diner. Kent is his only real friend. “It’s been quiet,” he tells Jonathan, “but the dinner rush is yet to hit, so…”

He trails off, gazing beyond the bar across the room. It’s not so crowded right now. The guy with the weird phone has been writing away in a notebook since late morning, while also consuming way more than what Will considers a healthy amount of caffeine, and he shows no sign of stopping (probably because of the caffeine, come to think of it).

“Nothing out of the ordinary to report,” Will finishes finally, as if an extreme abnormality isn’t sitting right at the bar.

“Sounds ‘swell!” Jonathan is always happy. He’s wearing a bright-yellow bow tie today, as if to prove it. “Thanks, Will. Hope you have a good night.”

“You, too,” Will says, pulling his hat off and balling it up with his apron.

As he heads for the locker room, Jonathan crosses to the end of the bar, where Will hears the phone guy greet him. “‘Sup.”

_ Sup? _

On his way through the kitchen, River looks up from the grill and waves. “Headed home?”

“Yeah,” Will replies, wondering if he looks as tired as he feels. He hopes not. “I need a nap.”

River laughs. “So do I. Have a good one.”

“You, too. Night, Riv.”

Will punches out in the back of the kitchen, waving to Johnson, who’s arms-deep (literally) in the suds of his dishwashing sink. Then, in the locker room, he swaps his apron and hat for his worn brown jacket, then changes his shoes— he came here in boots, but he usually works in his red sneakers; they make for easy walking around the diner. As he’s lacing up his second shoe, there’s a gentle rap in the doorway behind him.

“Going home?”

He knows it’s Kent before he even looks, so he nods and finishes his shoe. “Jonathan just got here.”

“Oh, I know,” Kent replies, and Will hears his steps as he crosses the room. He finishes tying his lace and looks up to discover Kent holding out a take-out container. “I just wanted to catch you on your way out.”

He eyes it suspiciously. “What’s that?”

“Dinner,” Kent replies, and as Will is gearing up to protest, he adds, “It’s a thank you for taking Denice’s shift.”

“Kenny, I  _ work _ here,” he says. “Taking a shift isn’t free-food-worthy. Besides, I need all the hours I can get.”

“Maybe so, but working fourteen days in a row is pretty food-worthy in my book.” Kent presses the box into his hands. Will feels his ears redden. “And don’t try to fight me on this. I had Riv put it together. It took him all of two seconds.”

“The others will unionize,” Will mutters. “Thinking you’re showing favoritism.”

Kent snorts. “You make it sound like we’re lovers or something.”

Will rolls his eyes. “That’s a terrifying thought.”

“I’m offended.”

“Uh-huh. Go cry about it.” He peeks into the container and asks, “What’s in here?”, but immediately discovers that for himself— it’s his favorite omelet on the menu, the mushroom one, in a bagel sandwich with a side of fries. His mouth waters at the mere prospect of having this for dinner. He mutters, “I still feel like I shouldn’t take this from you.”

“Well! That’s too bad,” Kent says, “because I’m going back to work and you’re leaving, so looks like you’re stuck with it. See ya!”

And then he’s gone. Will calls a “thank you, Kenny,” after him, but he’s not sure if he hears him.

He goes out the back door. It’s still sunny out, but it’s breezy, too, and he wonders if they’ll get another frost tonight. He hasn’t dared to plant in his yard yet, for that reason. Two years ago, he laid down a bunch of starter plants too early, and a frost choked them out a week later. He tries to be careful, but you never know this time of year.

He hops up into his truck and gets the heat going as best he can, then heads home. He lives on the west side of town, an eight-minute drive from work, not that it takes you much longer than that to get from any point A to B in Good Haven. It’s the kind of small town where your neighbors know just about everything about you, where gossip pervades daily life just as frequently as sunshine and clouds do. He’s twenty-five years old, and as a kid, he thought he’d be long gone by now, moved out to the seaside, working at a dock instead of behind a diner bar.

But life changes, and his priorities aren’t what they were back then. Sometimes you don’t end up where you think you’re going to be.

His house is on a dirt road, and his driveway isn’t paved, either. Some roads in Good Haven are better than others— Main Street, where Annie’s is, got freshly paved after the war and has held up pretty well ever since, but it feels like his own street is in danger of washing out every time there’s a bad rainstorm like the one they got on Thursday night.

Luckily, his truck can take it. He drives up the windy way that leads home, and when he gets to the top of the hill, everything is as he left it bright and early this morning. The old white house he grew up in is completely dark, but at least it’s not past sunset. The shifts in the dead of wintertime, when he leaves before sunup and gets home after sundown, are the worst ones. Everything is harder when the days are shorter, air is colder, world is darker.

He takes the takeout container off his passenger seat and walks up to the front door, where he unlocks it with his key and pushes himself inside. This house is drafty, a product of its age, but he can always light a fire in the hearth if it’s that bad tonight. It seems late in the season for that, but then again, you never know.

“Hey, Ma,” he calls, as he crosses from the mudroom to the kitchen. “Hey, Pa. I’m home.”

His parents don’t respond. They never do, not that they’re able to. For years, they’ve been nothing more than their smiling faces in the pictures on the walls.

He puts the takeout box down on the kitchen table, and catches a whiff of the smell as he peeks at its contents again. It was real nice of Kenny to give him this, and though he’s not so sure he deserves it, it’s not the first time he’s left work with food forced upon him by Kent or even by Annie. He thinks there’s a part of Kent that pities him, which doesn’t make him feel the greatest, but tries to tell himself that free food is free food, and he should be grateful no matter why he has it.

The scent makes his mouth water, but it’s not quite supper time, really, and the poor animals out at the barn have been alone all day. He can always reheat it.

But if he’s going outside, he needs work clothes, as in the barn, rather than work clothes, as in the diner, which are what he currently has on. So makes his way up to his room, turning on lights in the house as he goes, where he swaps his blue plaid button-down for a flannel in red and black.

Now he’s ready.

He heads back outside, leaving his supper on the table for now. The grass isn’t quite green yet, but it’s getting there, and the flags are flying straight southward in the heavy breeze. His two cows are way out in the back field, and a few of the hens are in the outdoor part of the coop that juts out from the barn. He’s glad, at least, that they haven’t spent the whole day indoors. They did enough of it in the wintertime.

The barn is warmer, but not by much, than the rest of the outside. A few of the hens  _ cluck  _ at his arrival, and he shuts the old sliding door behind him. “Afternoon, ladies,” he says. “Sorry I was gone so long.”

His great grandfather built this barn in 1888. Aside from a few structural upgrades, it hasn’t seen much change since. It really,  _ really  _ needs a new paint job, though. The burgundy-brown color of its exterior is peeling like no one’s business.

As if on cue, there’s a piercing  _ mew  _ from the rafters, and he searches them until he locates the source of the sound. “Hi, Mittens.” She’s a skinny cat, short-haired and all black except for the white patches around her nose and at her paws. She’s perched behind one of the beams on the ceiling, and she’s eyeing him like she’s waiting for something. “I know,” he says. “You’re waiting. I’ll get you something before I turn in, okay?”

Pa always warned him,  _ don’tcha ever feed a barn cat if you don’t want em’ to stick around, cause they’ll warm right up to you faster than you even know _ , but Pa never met Mittens. She’s a real asshole, if Will’s being honest, but she’s hungry, and no one deserves to be hungry if he can do anything about it.

He surveys the scene. The cows are still outside, but they need to be fed, and so does every other animal. The work ahead is straightforward, a routine he’s well used to. And the sooner he gets it done, the sooner he can eat that omelet sandwich.

So he cracks his knuckles and gets to work.

*

Chores take him just over an hour, thanks to the fact that he did most of his work before he left for Annie’s bright and early this morning. This is usually how it goes— early to bed and early to rise; it makes his nights easier if he gets it all done in the morning. When he’s finished, he goes to grab Mittens a can of tuna from the house, then bids the ladies goodnight and locks up for the evening. On his way past the flag, he lets it down and ties it up, since it can’t fly in the dark when he has no way of keeping it lit up.

He locks the front door of the house behind him. There’s a chill running through his bones, but it’s his fault for not bundling up better. Warmer days are coming, he tells himself, and with them, longer sunlight. Easier going.

Sort of.

He showers off the chill and the smell of the barn, but he’s incapable of taking a shower that’s longer than five minutes for the sake of conserving heat. Also, he’s hungry. Really hungry.

He reheats the takeout in the oven on an old cookie sheet. A few minutes at 350 do the trick, and then he sets three places at the table, sitting down at the third with his plate of warm food. The other two places stay empty, like they always do, but he would feel strange not setting them.

He says grace to himself—  _ bless us, O Lord _ , et cetera, and though it always feels weird saying grace in the plural first person, it’s what he was taught growing up, and it’s part of his routine. After  _ amen _ , he tests to see if the food is still too hot, but it’s fine now, so he digs in.

The sandwich is delicious. He thanks Riv and Kenny, quietly, in his head just after his first bite.

Then, when he swallows, he murmurs, “So, uh… Ma.”

The house meets him with empty silence, the same as always, but he goes on anyway. “At work today, someone came in with the most funny-looking object.”

He is not talking to himself, because that’s what crazy people do. He knows that Ma can hear him, whether heaven is just beyond the world he can see here, or miles up in the sky.

He likes to think she’s here with him, in her house, and Pa with her. He’s never seen them, but it’s a comforting thought.

“It was this…  _ glass _ thing, or it had a glass face, but it was metal. Rectangular. Like a dark mirror.” He can see the thing in his head as he describes it. “The guy, the man who brought it… he called it a phone.”

He can see the man who brought it, too, but that’s less peculiar, aside from the fact that he’d never seen him before. And the fact that he was beautiful. But Will shakes that thought before it comes. It’s far from important.

“Said he was staying with Eric,” Will adds. “Must be a tourist. I don’t know where he comes from that phones look like that, but… aw, Ma, you should’ve seen it. There was  _ no _ way it was a phone. It was too…” He trails off, chewing, and hunting for the word. “Too odd. It looked nothing like one, not even those new colorful ones they’re coming out with.”

He pauses. The fries are somehow not soggy, despite the fact that they’re hours old. River is like that. He does food magic. “He asked if I knew how to fix it,” he says. “I felt a little bad, but— how could he expect me to fix something if I didn’t even know what it was? I swear, Ma, I thought I was on an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

He almost laughs a little at himself, but the noise dies in his throat. “I know you don’t know what that is. It’s a new TV show. It’s a little spooky. Kenny likes it.

“And, uh… not much else is new, I guess,” he says. “I think it might frost tonight. I’ll do your planting soon, but I want to wait for the risk to blow over.”

He sighs, glancing between the two empty plates in front of their empty chairs. Wind rumbles at the walls and window panes, but other than that, the house feels particularly, pervasively silent today. It’s a loud quiet, one that shouts at him from every empty corner and room, and though he’s very well used to it, it bores at his eardrums tonight. He wonders if maybe he should put a record on. Kent gave him the new Bobby Darin for Christmas.

But no… no. He doesn’t want music. He’ll eat and he’ll listen to his radio show and then he’ll go to bed.

“I fed the barn cat again, Pa,” he says, halfway through his pile of magic fries. “She’s a trip. I just feel bad for her, is all. I think you’d like her, but she doesn’t like me very much.” He pauses. “Not that I blame her. Kenny says I’m becoming a real grouch.”

He sighs into his plate and adds, “He’s probably right.”

He makes his way through the meal like this, and when he’s done, he washes the dishes, even the ones from the two place settings that didn’t get used. It’s what he’s used to. Nevermind that the people who used to sit at this table with him have been gone for years.

It makes him feel a little less alone.

After dinner, it’s radio, cleaning up, and bed. He’s into a semi-restless sleep by nine, and he drifts off thinking of the object in the diner, of all things.

He’ll do it all again tomorrow.

Will Poindexter is a man of habit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read some more about Will's backstory in this AU, check out [this 5+1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988267) that I wrote for Christmas. (We'll learn more about his backstory in this story specifically than what's hinted at in just this chapter, but for now, my other fic is there if you're curious/interested.) I'm [on tumblr](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/), and comments make me very happy!! :)


	6. 1961

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Derek finally realizes there's something weird about this town.

The second barkeep is chill, but Derek gets bored after Will leaves.

Not because he and Will were talking, really. In fact, the only times Will talks to him that day after failing to fix his phone are to ask if he wants more coffee or to serve him the omelet. But for some reason, Will is incredibly entertaining. He works across the bar and minds his business, unaware that his general presence (uptight as it may be) is inspiring pages on pages of poetry.

Okay, Derek isn’t writing  _ about _ him. He’s actually just writing about the diner as a whole. But it’s something. And he is super fucking pleased with himself.

Something subtle changes. The guy who takes over for him is friendly, making less standoffish conversation than Will, and he wears a bright yellow bowtie, which is honestly inspiring.

But about an hour after Will leaves, the writing tap runs dry. Not in the terrifyingly desolate sense that it’s felt dry for the past few months, but in the sense of feeling like it’s a good point to stop for the day. He closes his notebook and tucks away his favorite pen, then finishes off his most recent cup of coffee. (Is it his third? Fourth? He kind of has no idea, which is mildly concerning, but, like, whatever).

Bow Tie Man, sensing he’s leaving, asks, “Can I get you the check?”

“Please, yeah,” Derek replies, and two minutes later, he hands him a receipt. “Thank you.”

Wait, holy shit. His entire total is  _ $1.60 _ ? That can’t be right. He flags down Bow Tie Man. “Uh— ‘scuse me?”

“Do you need anything, sir?”

“No, I— I just, I think my total is wrong.” He turns the check to show him. “It says one-sixty.”

Bow Tie Man studies it for a second, then nods. “Nope! One-sixty is right. Unless… did I overcharge you for coffee? Will wrote your tab. It says you had three cups earlier, and he served you an omelet at some point. Plus I refilled you once.”

“That’s right, though.” Derek furrows his brow. He looks between the check and the guy a few times, then, finally, says, “You want me to pay one dollar and sixty cents for a meal?”

Bow Tie Man looks just slightly uncomfortable now. He adjusts the tie in question. “I… can get you the manager?”

“No— no, you don’t have to do that,” he replies. “I just don’t want to underpay you.”

“Oh,  _ under _ pay?” Relief washes through his face. “No, don’t worry about that. These are the prices.”

“Are you  _ sure _ ?”

“I’m positive!” And now he’s smiling. “Don’t worry at all about underpaying.”

Derek sifts through his wallet and scrutinizes the bill for a long time before he finally decides to leave a five. Bow Tie Man thanks him as he goes, and tells him to have a good night.

A dollar sixty. That’s like Eric’s ten-dollar hotel. How do people in this town make money?

When he gets back to the inn, riding off his high of being productive as fuck today, he’s momentarily forgotten any of his electronic troubles, but his phone sits in his messenger bag as a reminder. Maybe he’ll write his whole manuscript by hand, and get his shit fixed when he gets back to New York.

Actually, no. He wants to talk to Chowder. He really has to do something about his phone.

In the parking lot, Larissa and Shitty are loading up their car and hugging Eric; they must be leaving. Shitty waves to him across the lot. “Hey, nice to meet you, man!”

“You, too!” he calls. “Have a good trip back to Boston.”

“Thanks!”

Larissa flashes him a peace sign. She’s wearing her leather jacket again, plus a pair of sunglasses.

He carries his bag up to the front door. “Y’all come back now,” he hears Eric call, as their car engine starts. “Safe trip home!”

The door is unlocked, but he holds it for Eric, who is just behind him as their car pulls away. “Derek! Welcome back,” he says. “How was your day? Did you find Will?”

Derek nods. “Yeah, I found him at the diner.”

“Oh,  _ good _ !” Eric reaches the door and steps inside. “Did he fix your phone?”

“Well, he looked at it,” he says, “but he didn’t end up being able to fix it.”  _ That and he had no idea what it was, but that seems to be a trend in this town, because you people are weird. _

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Eric says, then turns before closing the door to watch the leaving car. There’s a little bit of a wistful look in his eyes as he lets it close, then walks to the front desk.

“I get a lot more business in the summer,” he explains. “That’s vacation season.”

“It seemed like they’ve been here before,” Derek says. “Larissa said they know you.”

“Oh, they have!” Eric flashes a smile, straightening the flower vase at the desk. “And they do know me. They’re good friends of mine, actually, from back in the day at Samwell. They live in Boston nowadays, which is a shame, ‘cause I miss them loads, but Shitty’s law firm—”

“Wait.” Derek does a double take, meets his eyes. “Did you say Samwell?”

“Yes!” He’s still all smiles, and rosy cheeks, too, like a proud father introducing his children. “Samwell University, down in Massachusetts. I was on the hockey team.”

“ _ Yo _ ! No fucking way,” Derek says, and he can tell that his cursing takes Eric by surprise, but when he continues, “ _ I  _ played hockey at Samwell,” Eric lights up like a Christmas tree.

“ _ Get out _ !” He slaps the countertop of the desk. “You were a Wellie?”

“ _ Yeah _ !” Derek laughs. What are the odds? “What year did you graduate?”

“Aw, you’ll make me feel old,” Eric replies, then squints at the ceiling. “I graduated in… well, ‘54, it must’ve been. Lordy.”

For the second time in less than a minute, Derek does a double take. “Wait— wait, sorry,” he says. “Did you say—”

“Class of 54.” Eric gives him this big, sheepish grin, his cheeks still pink. “Now, don’t come for me, I know I may not look it, but—”

“Wait wait wait.” Derek repeats it back to him, slowly, like he isn’t hearing correctly. “Nine teen fifty four?”

“Yes.” As if he isn’t talking like an actual certifiable crazy person, Eric looks completely unfazed. “What year did you graduate?”

“I…” This isn’t real life, right? He can’t be serious? “I graduated three years ago?”

“Oh! I must’ve missed you by a few years, then.”  _ What the FUCK _ . “What did you study?”

Okay. Well. Apparently Eric is  _ way more _ off his rocker than Derek ever thought humanly possible. He manages to get out, “English,” but then the floodgates open, and Eric is grilling him.

“What position did you play? Did you have Coach Hall? I always loved ol’ Coach. He pushed me to be my best, and he was just tough enough! Did you live in the Haus? Did you kiss the ice?”

He goes on like this for quite some time— Derek has learned quickly that Eric has a penchant for rambling, and he tries to field most of the questions like he isn’t standing here  _ losing his fucking mind _ that this man is talking about graduating college in 1954. There’s no way.  _ No way _ . He can’t be a day older than thirty, and even that’s generous.

Does he think he’s living in the past? He certainly decorates like it. At least the diner is  _ supposed  _ to look retro— but this place is about fifty years out of style.

Maybe he was in an accident. Derek took a few psych classes in undergrad. It wouldn’t be completely out of the question; he’s heard of people suffering brain damage and thinking they’re from Victorian England or the Viking age.

And yet, even if he has some kind of brain damage, everything he’s saying about Samwell checks out. He obviously  _ did _ really go there, and Larissa and Shitty probably did, too; they seemed like the Samwell type.

(Class of 1954. What the actual fuck is going on.)

At some point, Derek slips away to go upstairs and get ready for dinner. He’s the only remaining patron at the inn tonight, and Eric says he’s taking special meal requests. The only thing Derek can think to really want is that omelet from the diner.

It was really good, okay? The fact that he’s lingering on it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that Will recommended it to him.

He reclines on the yellow bed and reads through his day’s progress in the depression notebook. It’s not bad at all. In fact, it could be the start of something really good, if he keeps it up.

He resolves he’ll go back to the diner. He has to, right? It’s where this wave of inspiration started. He’s going to ride that shit all the way into shore.

But first: dinner. With the man who may or may not be completely out of his mind. No matter how out of it he might be, he can definitely cook.

When he gets downstairs, Eric is kicking the oven. “Aw, c’mon, old girl. You can do it! Just a few more degrees—”  _ Thud _ . “ _ Aghhhh _ …”

Derek lingers in the doorway, unsure whether to cross the threshold and enter into the world of untapped crazy. First he rattles impossible dates, then he talks to appliances. “Do you need any help?”

“Oh, I’m alright.” Eric folds his arms and sighs, eyeing the oven with disdain. “Old Betsy’s on her last legs.”

Okay. Fine. He’ll go into the kitchen. “Is that what you call your oven?”

Eric nods mournfully. “She’s been with me for years, since my mama opened this place. Guess it’s probably her time. The trouble is, I can’t afford a new one, really. Maybe I oughta call—”

“Oh, that reminds me.” Derek digs into his pocket for his wallet. “I think I’ll stay a few more nights. When can I pay you?”

“Oh, you can pay me later.” Eric smiles. “I take it you had a good day at the diner, then.”

He nods. “I did, yeah. It was good for my inspiration.”

“I’m glad to hear it, hon.” Eric bends over and opens the oven again. It makes an ugly choking sound from the interior, and he lets out a groan, then straightens up. “What kind of inspiration?”

“Oh.” Derek pauses. “I’m an author.”

While Eric puts together a dinner that can be cooked sans the oven, they get to talking about his book and his PhD studies and his life in New York. Eric has questions galore about the city, and he tries to field them to the best of his ability. In twenty minutes flat, he’s whipped up some kind of cast-iron skillet cornbread, with beans and sausage and sprouts. It smells like actual heaven, and they sit down across from each other under the still life of the baked goods.

“Larissa painted that,” Eric tells him, with the same fond smile he wore as he watched their car leave earlier. “She’s quite the gifted artist.”

“It’s really beautiful,” Derek replies, still marveling over the lighting techniques. It’s been a long time since he painted anything worthwhile, but his book has a good handful of sketches interspersed with his poetry. He wonders if he should do the same thing on this new manuscript, mixing mediums. “I double-majored at Samwell. English and visual art. Wish I’d known she was a painter before she left; I totally would’ve asked her about her style.”

“She’s very talented,” Eric says. “I keep meaning to ask her for another piece. Maybe for the sitting-room.”

Derek takes a bite of cornbread and nearly combusts. It tastes as good as it smells. “Holy shit, Eric; this is delicious. How’d you do this without an oven?”

Eric gives a little shrug, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “A man has his ways.”

They eat in quiet for a moment, and Derek scrutinizes him, trying to hunt for any sign of madness in his otherwise perfectly normal demeanor. He seems to be an entirely functional human being. How can he explain what happened earlier? Did he imagine it?

No… it definitely happened. So what gives?

Maybe he should ask Will. Maybe the rest of the town knows Eric is off his rocker, and the only ones stupid enough to stay at his inn are out-of-towners who don’t know any better.

But then again, this guy looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly even if he wanted to.

“Okay, I have a question,” he says finally, and Eric nods, attentive. “Is Kent the one that’s your cousin?”

“Oh.” With a slight chuckle, Eric reacts the same way he did when Larissa dropped the comment about the manager the other night, which is all the response Derek needs, really, but he continues anyway. “Yes, that’s him. And the owner is my aunt.”

“Huh.” Derek nods, then pauses to have some sprouts— fuck, that’s tasty. “Wait, so— sorry if this is offensive— why does Kent not have a Southern accent, but you do?”

Eric laughs. “That’s not offensive, honey. In fact, I’ll tell you the whole story. My mama’s from here, originally, but she moved to Georgia to marry my daddy a long time ago, and while they were down there, they had me…”

What follows is essentially his entire life story, from his early years in Georgia to when they moved back north because his mama wanted to be there for her sister, who was pregnant with Kent, and then the sister opened the diner, and Eric’s mama settled down and opened up the inn, and his daddy got a job coaching football at the high school, and they sent him to Samwell and he had a great time, thanks for asking, and here he is twenty-some years later, running the inn just like his mama did before him— and oh, she and Daddy live across town nowadays; she bakes in her spare time but she’s retired, really, and she comes on over here to help me out some of the time; she taught me everything I know—

Eric, as it turns out, is a talker.

But the man can cook.

*

_ Day 3 In Good Haven _

There’s still no luck from his phone or laptop the next morning. He resolves to figure out what their deal is this afternoon, but first he wants to test his inspiration-comes-from-the-diner hypothesis. And also, he really wants to have that omelet again. And double also, maybe to figure out if everyone else knows Eric has delusions of grandeur or if this is a unique new discovery.

And maybe he’s hoping Will is working, for a variety of reasons.

Kent is working the host stand again. “Phone boy! You’re back!” His bowling shirt is two-toned today, in black and white, and the hat versus cowlick war rages on.

Derek shrugs, pulling his bag's strap off his shoulder. “The food was good yesterday.”

Kent grins. “Glad to hear it. Table for one?”

He peeks past the host stand, searching the space for the big handsome ginger of yesterday’s fame. “Can I sit at the bar?”

“Well, of course you can, curly,” Kent says. He brandishes one of many menus from a stack next to the cash register. “You still want a menu?”

“I’m okay. But thanks.”

He takes his same seat from yesterday, at the far left end of the bar. As he’s pulling out the depression notebook, he spots Will— he’s not behind the bar, but no one else is, either, so Derek places his bets on the fact that he will be. Right now, he’s waiting on an elderly couple in a booth by the window. The place is a lot less crowded than it was yesterday, but it’s not dead, either.

Derek sticks his lucky pen behind his ear and sneaks another glance at Will across the room. He has an apron tied around his waist, and his button-down is green today; it seems he always cuffs up his sleeves. It’s a good look.

He’s definitely not thirsting over a random waiter he has only spoken to one (1) time.

He buries his face in his notebook, jotting down random environmental notes, until Will rounds the back of the bar, whereupon he calls up his most chill vibes and gives him a nod. “Morning, Will.”

“Good morning.” Like yesterday, Will carries a standoffish demeanor, and eyes him warily, like he thinks he’s about to be asked another question about an iPhone. “You came back?”

Derek flashes a grin and rests his chin on his fist. “I can’t stop thinking about that mushroom omelet.”

This doesn’t earn the laugh, or even the smile, that he expects it to, which is mildly disappointing. “Fair enough,” Will says, already going under the bar for a cup and a saucer. “It  _ is _ a good omelet. Coffee to start?”

“Thanks, yeah, that sounds chill.” As Will pours, he watches the steaming stuff, relishing in the sound like it’s ASMR, then follows the stream of coffee up to Will’s freckly hand. His hands are huge, which…

He shakes it off. “I’m Derek, by the way,” he says. “I don’t think I introduced myself yesterday.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Will deadpans, like it isn’t actually nice at all. Is he like this as his default, or is he a grumpy asshole?

Still, Derek replies, “You, too. For the second time,” and flashes another smile.

Will finishes pouring and turns away. Nothing.

Derek sighs at his notebook.  _ White dudes. _

“Hey, Kenny!” Will calls across the room. “Quick question?”

From the host stand, he hears Kent’s voice. “Your happiness is my number one concern, Dexy.”

“Did you steal all my menus?”

While they settle the menu debacle, Derek glances up at Will. Half of him wants to ask why he’s pretty sure Kent just called him Dexy— or did he say sexy? Because that’s potentially even funnier— but the other half, the one that tells him it’s kind of weird to ask someone you just met about a random nickname his coworker calls him, that half wins.

He picks his pen up. Might as well get to work.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he says, as Will comes back from Kent’s host stand armed with several menus. He tucks them into a slot on the wall.

“Of course,” Will replies, all business. “Just let me know when you want to order? I can give you a real menu, if you want.”

“Nah… I’ll stick with what I got yesterday,” he replies. “But I won’t put it in yet.”

He’ll be sticking around awhile. The fresh pages in his notebook seem to beckon to, rather than intimidate, him.

Five minutes later, he’s writing up a storm, and he will  _ take _ it, thank you very much. Across the bar, Will bustles around doing his various jobs, and it’s good, quiet company, even if it turns out that Will is a total asshole. He may be hot, but Derek isn’t here for him, at least not directly. He’s here for himself.

And he’s  _ writing _ .

He gets several pages in before he flips back to take a look at his progress, and that’s when he realizes he hasn’t dated the first page.  _ Oops.  _ This is the part where he would usually look at his phone, but, well. The thing is suffering from gross incompetence.

He looks up, tipping up the brim of his green hat. Will catches his eye. “Ready to order?”

“I mean… sure, why not,” he replies, and Will jots something down on the pad of paper stuck in his apron pocket. He brings it to the kitchen window and passes it to the French braid guy. Where’s Bow Tie Man, by the way? He was chill yesterday.

“Do you know what the date is?”

Will nods. “It’s the tenth.”

Derek furrows his brow. That doesn’t sound right. “Wait, for real? I could’ve sworn I left New York on the eighth.”

Now Will is looking at him like he’s said something weird. “Well, have you been gone for two days?”

“No,” he replies. “It’s been five.” He pauses for a second, then, “You sure it’s the tenth?”

“I’m positive.”

“July 10th.”

“No.” Will’s confusion seems to increase. A little wrinkle appears between his eyebrows, which is actually really cute, if Derek is being honest. “What?  _ April _ 10th.”

Wait wait wait. “ _ What _ ?”

“It’s April 10th.”

“No.” Derek shakes his head. He flips back to the front of his notebook, where the pages from Samwell are dated  _ 07.08.21; 07.09.21 _ . “It’s July.”

“No, it’s April,” Will replies, and God, is he having some fucking déjà vu shit right now? Is he being Punk’d? “It’s springtime. It frosted just last night.”

“No— no, no way,” Derek says. His throat is dry, but there’s  _ no way _ he’s wrong. He’s on his medication. Everything is fine. He’s not dissociating. “I just went to my best friend’s wedding. It’s the middle of the summer.”

Will is looking at him like he’s crazy. Like  _ he’s _ fucking crazy! That’s it. This town is full of lunatics. He has to get to the bottom of this. “I… don’t know how else to tell you this,” Will says, “but today is April 10th. Hold on.”

Will reaches for a small calendar that’s hanging on the wall behind the bar, and places it down on the mint-green surface, next to the coffee and the depression notebook. It’s turned to April— but that’s not the weird part. The top of the page says  _ April 1961 _ .

“This calendar is from 1961,” Derek says.

“Well, I would sure hope so,” Will replies.

“What do you mean?” He looks up to meet his eyes, which, by the way, are still gorgeously amber, but that’s really not the main point here, because Derek is confused on a number of levels, thanks very much. And then, a potential explanation— “ _ Oh _ , chill, is this one of those vintage calendars where it lines up with the current year?”

‘“What? No?” The wrinkle between Will’s eyes intensifies. He has freckles all over his nose. God, Derek,  _ focus _ . “I haven’t ever heard of that.”

“Then why are you using a 1961 calendar?”

“Because that’s—” Will squints at him, shakes his head. “That’s the year?”

Derek stares across the bar at him for three empty seconds.

Then he says, “ _ Huh _ ?”

“Are you okay?”

“Are  _ you _ okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

“Nine teen sixty one?”

“Nine teen sixty one.”

Derek tips back in his stool, realizes it’s about to fall over, and pulls himself back to the bar. He lowers his voice and stares Will down like it’ll reverse the absurdity of what has just come out of his mouth. “Fucking  _ what _ ?!?”

Will’s tone is accusatory, but he, too, is whispering now, like he thinks that the conversation they’re having shouldn’t be overheard by clueless diner patrons. “What year do  _ you _ think it’s supposed to be?”

“Um, 2021?” Derek replies, and Will blinks again, shakes his head like this is ridiculous.

“I’m sorry—” Will stammers, “do you need to see a doctor?”

“Hey,  _ no _ ,” he says, and he tries to ignore the twist in his stomach at the mere suggestion, a visceral reaction that threatens to unearth memories he’s tried to bury six feet under. “I don’t, thanks. This is a joke, right? You guys are pulling some elaborate con?” He surveys the diner, all its retro decor, its completely placid patronage and waitstaff. “Is this one of those reenactment towns where you pretend you’re living in the past? Is that why Eric told me he graduated college in 1954?”

“He  _ did  _ graduate in 54,” Will replies. “Because it’s 1961. I— I think you need to see a doctor.”

His stomach does a somersault again. “Yo,  _ chill _ ; I don’t need to see a fucking doctor, man.”

Will’s face is reddening. “Why do you keep saying that?!”

“Why are  _ you _ talking to  _ me _ like  _ I’m _ crazy?”

“Because you  _ sound  _ crazy!”

“No,  _ you _ sound crazy—”

“Hey, Dexy?”

They both jolt up at the same time— during their altercation, Derek realizes, they’ve been leaning closer and closer across the bar, for the sake of whisper-yelling. Kent has left his host stand, and lingers a few feet away from them, arms folded, his face equal parts confusion and suspicion. “Everything okay over here?”

Will adjusts his apron and nods. His ears have gone fully red, and with them, the rest of his face. He’s like a freckly tomato. “Fine, Kenny. Sorry for the ruckus.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Kent replies, still sounding wary. “Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a problem.”

Will shakes his head, gives him a tight-lipped smile. “All good.”

When Kent is gone, Will gets back to work and leaves him at the bar.

Derek looks between the calendar and his surroundings, over and over, and takes his hat off to run his hands through his hair. There’s no way this is real life. He’s asleep in the yellow bed at Eric’s, and he’ll wake up any second. Or better yet, he’s asleep in the room at the Samwell Holiday Inn, and this entire thing has been a dream, from the phone-ruining storm to Eric’s possible brain damage to  _ this ginger asshole _ .

But all of a sudden, everything falls into place— the fact that his electronics won’t turn on, all of the seemingly outdated features at Eric’s, these people’s confusion about technology and slang. The prices being so low. No computers in the library.  _ Class of 1954 _ —

He… unwittingly  _ time traveled _ ?

There’s no way, right? There’s no way. Time travel isn’t possible. It only exists in books and movies, not in his real, actual, tangible life. And even if it  _ were _ possible, how could he have done it without realizing?

But the evidence— he sweeps the room to look for something, anything that’ll put his mind at ease, a cell phone or a color photograph on the walls or a passing modern car out the window. There’s nothing. It’s all people smoking and having coffee and, now that he notices, eyeing him with suspicion after the altercation with Will.

He takes a long breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and all at once it occurs to him—

_ You have to chill. _

He’s Derek Nurse. He does not lose his shit in public. He puts his hat back on his head and looks back at his notebook, which is no longer the first of his priorities. His heart is pounding. He knows this caged-in panic, this silent killer that’s eaten away at his sense of calm so many times before. He hasn’t felt this unsettled in a long, long time.

Okay. Okay. Chill. He does not lose his shit  _ in public _ .

He leaves five dollars on the bar, gathers his stuff, and books it out to his car.

Fuck this. He’s getting out of here, and he’s going to call Chowder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well boys, it finally happened. I'm honestly proud of Nursey for being clueless enough to make it this far without realizing. Anyway. I'm on [tumblr](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/); come say hi! And leave a comment if you want to! :)


	7. you again

Derek drives directly out of town, the way he came, and follows signs that point to get back to the interstate. It’s desolate out here, and for a few terrifying minutes on I-95 he thinks he might not find a way to get away from whatever impossible dream he’s living in right now, but then— then it happens.

He’s speeding in the middle lane on the highway, and his phone, from inside his messenger bag, starts going  _ crazy _ .

_ Ding ding dingdingdingding _ . It’s his text tone, sounding over and over again, notifications flooding in the way they do when you turn your phone on after it died. At the same time his phone blows up, his car radio powers on unprompted, and then— after a little static— he hears a narrator’s voice coming faintly from the speakers.

He turns it up and lets up on the gas a little. It’s… his audiobook. From Thursday night. And it’s reading to him right where it cut off in the storm.

_ Holy shit.  _ Okay, okay. He needs to pull over. There’s no one else out here, so he pulls into the breakdown lane and throws on his hazards, then grapples into his bag for his phone.

He pauses the audiobook (because that shit is giving him the creeps), then scrolls through his notifications. A bunch of sales emails, a newsletter from his publisher about summer releases, and— Chowder.

_ big c _

_ Friday, 8:11 PM _

_ Dude!! I saw your insta post of Samwell… major nostalgia _

_ Friday, 8:30 PM _

_ big c sent a photo _

_ Also look!!!! I found Stitch today!!! Finally!!!!! _

_ I told him my bestfriend Nursey says hi and he gave me a thumbs up!!!!! _

_ Today, 7:17 AM _

_ Broooooo I dont wanna leave Disney :(((((( we’re on our way to the airport _

_ How are you!!! Where are you!! Hows samwell ? ? _

_ Today, 9:02 AM _

_ We’re on the plane!!! I’ll text you when we land in San Jose!!!! _

_ Hope you’re finding some writing inspiriation!!!! _

  
  


These are the end of Chowder’s texts. Derek unlocks his phone, goes straight for the calendar, and finds what he’s looking for. The date is Saturday, July 10th, 2021. His third day away from New York. He lets out a long breath and presses his forehead to the steering wheel. His phone is fine; he’s fine. It’s exactly the year he thought it was.

But wait. He counts on his fingers. He was with Eric for three nights. And he was at Samwell for one night. Isn’t it supposed to be Monday?

Fuck. Okay. He needs to call Chowder. And Chowder is probably on a plane. Even though it’s supposed to be Monday, and he’s supposed to be home by now.

Worth a shot, right? He dials.

Chowder picks up on the second ring. “Nursey!”

“ _ Chowder _ ,” he breathes. The sound of his best friend’s voice is enough to calm his panic at least a little. “Bro. Dude. The craziest shit is happening to me, and I need you to tell me I’m not losing it.”

“Whoa— yeah, of course I will; are you okay?” There’s a  _ lot _ of noise on Chowder’s end; wherever he is, it’s crowded. “You sound really stressed.”

“I— I don’t know what happened,” Derek says. “I— I got caught in this storm, and I wound up in this town where everyone acted weird, and the next thing I know it was Monday, and I got in a fight with this waiter over what  _ year _ it was—”

“Wait,  _ what _ ?!” Chowder sounds intrigued, but still concerned. “Dude, first of all, it’s Saturday. Did you go on a bender?”

“No,” Derek replies. “Like, for sure not. I haven’t had alcohol since… your wedding, I think. I don’t know what happened. I just—”

“Okay, hey, okay, Nursey?” Derek halts at this, because it’s Chowder, and Chowder is pretty much the only person in the world who a.) knows that he gets like this, and b.) knows how to talk him down. “Let’s take a deep breath, okay? Hold on one second.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Derek swallows, and his throat is dry, like it was in the diner. He puts his forehead to the top of his steering wheel again. “I’m chilling. Sorry.”

“Hold on.” There’s movement on Chowder’s end, and then the roar of his surroundings dulls a little. “Sorry. I’m in the Austin airport. We’re waiting for our second plane to get here.”

“Shit,  _ shit _ , I’m sorry, C,” Derek groans. “I didn’t mean to, like, bother you while you’re traveling—”

“Hey, no way, man,” Chowder replies. “Don’t even think about saying sorry. Okay, can you hear me good?”

“Yeah— yeah, I can hear you.”

“Okay. Take a deep breath. Focus on the sound of my voice.”

Chowder walks him through a breathing exercise, one they use during Derek’s moments of hidden unchill, something his therapist taught him two summers before Samwell, the summer everything was dark and awful and really fucking hard. Derek zeroes in on a pine tree a little ways up the highway, one that juts out above the others, swaying just gently in the breeze. He cracks a window for the fresh air, and he breathes.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, his brain slows to its normal rate of mental processing, or at least it’s not on fire anymore. Chowder is patient and kind, the way he always is. When he’s okay enough to talk again, Derek lets out a long exhale. “Okay,” he says. “I’m chill.”

“Okay,” Chowder says, a little wary still. “Do you wanna talk about what happened now?”

He gives him the full lodown, from the storm to checking in at Eric’s to his first and second visits to the diner. He leaves out Will, or at least any details past the fact that Eric sent him to him, and that he didn’t know what an iPhone was. Now is not the time to be thinking about someone who just made him feel like a complete idiot, even if he’s good-looking.

But the question remains, and Chowder raises it for him, at the end of his recap of the weekend. “Nursey… did you  _ time travel _ ?!?”

“I don’t know,” Derek replies. “I have no idea. I feel like maybe— maybe I did? I know it sounds  _ crazy _ , C, but I can’t figure out any other way to explain this shit— especially because you say it’s Saturday but I  _ know _ it was a Monday when I left there—”

“How long have you been out of the town?”

“Like, fifteen minutes? No longer.” Derek pauses. “I kind of fucked off out of there, because I knew I was about to lose my cool, and I didn’t want to do it in front of—”

He cuts himself off, but Chowder catches him anyway. “In front of who?”

“The— the waiter, the one who told me it was 1961.” He pauses. “Will.”

Chowder is quiet for a few seconds. Derek squeezes his eyes shut.  _ Stupid.  _ “This is the guy you had look at your phone?”

“Yeah. He’s… he’s nobody. He’s just some ginger guy. He may also be a total asshole.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Chowder says, “but is he by any chance attractive?”

“ _ Chowder _ .” Derek groans. “This is not the time.”

“ _ You _ were the one who said you didn’t want to lose your cool in front of him.”

“I don’t want to lose my cool in front of anybody,” he replies. “And it’s not about his looks. That diner was good for me, though, before I knew anything weird was going on.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I was…” He winces at himself. “Okay, don’t freak out. But I was writing. A lot. In that diner.”

“What?!” Chowder’s fully yelling again. “You were what?  _ Nursey _ , that’s ‘swawesome! Why didn’t you say so before?”

“Uh, like, maybe because I was preoccupied thinking I might’ve accidentally time traveled?”

“But  _ Nursey _ ! What if it’s a sign? What if the universe is saying you need something crazy to happen to start writing again?”

He has had this thought, albeit brief. “But  _ time travel _ ? Isn’t that a little much?”

“ _ Dude _ ! This is crazy!” There’s a smile in Chowder’s voice, and if it were someone else, the excitement he can hear might be annoying. But it’s Chowder, and he’s looking out for him, so he hears him out. “Okay, so you accidentally time travel and you’re writing again. How much are you writing? Is it better than it has been?”

“It’s so much better,” Derek says. “But I dunno, C, I—”

And then: alarm bells in his head.

_ Oh, shit. Wait a second. _

He reaches for his bag and rummages through it.

_ Shit.  _ He looks inside, upheaves its contents. _ Shit shit shit shit. _

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he says out loud, and Chowder’s excitement dissolves into concern.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I left my notebook at the diner.”

*

It’s not the only thing he forgot in Good Haven. His overnight bag, as it turns out, is still at Eric’s inn. And who knows what happened to his notebook, given the fact that by the time he, reluctantly, makes his way back to Annie’s, Will has left for the day and it’s Bow Tie Man again.

So here he is. Back in Good Haven. Back in the past, for some fucking reason.

_ I’ll keep you updated,  _ he told Chowder just before they hung up, after a lot of urging on Chowder’s part, a lot of convincing that he should go back for it, that he should see if the writing thing keeps up. _ I promise. _

_ Good luck, Nursey _ .

“No, I haven’t seen a notebook,” Bow Tie Man says, apologetically. His bow tie is maroon today. “But I can give you a call if it pops up! Are you visiting town right now?”

“Yeah, I am,” he replies. _Apparently._ “I’m staying at Eric’s inn, so I guess you can call him if it turns up.” He’s either the biggest idiot in history or the most out-of-the-box author of his generation. “Also, I’m Derek.”

“I’m Jonathan,” replies Bow Tie Man. His smile is warm, like Chowder’s. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

Back at the inn, he hands Eric fifty dollars, tells him he’ll stay the week, and books it up the stairs to his room before Eric can protest.

He’s conducting an experiment, he decides. He’s going to see what happens. And he can’t go anywhere until he gets that stupid depression notebook.

It’s chill. He’ll be fine.

He needs to stop using his bravado shit as a coping mechanism.

*

_ April 11th, 1961 _

_ Day 4 In Good Haven _

Will isn’t sure why he took the notebook.

He hasn’t  _ looked _ in it, of course. That would be an invasion of privacy. But he’s also pretty sure that the guy from work— Derek— didn’t mean to leave it, and he didn’t want to clock out with it just sitting on the bar counter, for some random patron to pick up. He debated leaving it in his locker in the staff room; he trusts his coworkers not to go through his things, but decided against it at the last second, and brought it home instead.

And now it’s here. On his kitchen table.

He’s on the early-morning shift today, opening the doors bright and early at seven o’clock, which means an early start for him with the barn. He’s been up and moving since five-thirty, and is only just getting around to having breakfast, if a sunny-side-up egg with a slice of tomato even counts as breakfast. He thinks it does. Maybe he should caffeinate, but the thought of putting on a pot of coffee when he has to be out of here in ten minutes anyway seems kind of pointless.

He eyes the notebook, which sits there menacingly. He will not open it, because he’d hate if he forgot one of his personal belongings in public and someone went through it without his consent, but he  _ does _ study the cover. It’s elegant brown leather, with stitching up its spine, and looks like it was expensive. Then again, Derek seems rich, if the way he dresses and his weird possessions and general attitude are any indication.

Well, okay, Will only has two conversations to infer his attitude from, but he regards himself to be a good judge of character.

And what is a rich man from New York doing in Good Haven?

It’s not like there aren’t well-to-do people here. The mayor has some money, and so does the family who own the supermarket, and even Annie and Kent make a pretty good living running the diner. But the majority of the town are the working class, and Will has never known a life where you don’t have to work your tail off just to barely get by.

He’s obviously a tourist; that much is clear. Tourists are usually the wealthiest people who come through town. But still. No matter how wealthy he is. He must also be crazy. Will can’t shake their argument yesterday from his mind. Who waltzes into town and decides he’s going to make a big fuss about what  _ year _ it is? Either he’s out of his mind, or it must’ve been some kind of practical joke.

Maybe he  _ was _ joking. Maybe he thought it was funny.

_ Why are you still thinking about him. _

Well, he knows why. It’s because he has his notebook. And he’s going to give it back. He’ll drive by Bittle’s Inn when he gets off work and leave it with Eric at the front desk. And that’ll be the end of it.

He’s just a tourist. Soon enough he’ll go home. This whole situation will be over. And Will can stop thinking about those green eyes.

He cleans up from breakfast, locks up the house, and heads to work. It’s a chilly morning, but the birds, sensing that spring has arrived, are singing, and sunrise is getting earlier each day. He puts his truck in its usual spot behind Annie’s, leaves the journal on his passenger’s seat, and goes in through the back door.

His pocket watch says it’s 6:45, which means he has fifteen minutes to open. Kent and River will be here soon, too, but he’s always the first one here. He always does his opening chores in the same order— lights on first, then put the starter money in the registers, then make sure the kitchen is clean for the cooks, then flip the sign in the window to  _ OPEN _ and unlock the front doors. When he finishes this, there’s enough time leftover for him to get his ducks in a row at the bar, organizing cups and making sure the napkin dispenser is filled. He’s putting on the first pot of coffee of the day when he hears the front door jingle, right on schedule.

“Morning, Kenny.” Kent’s apartment is just upstairs, and it only occurs to Will that it’s weird he’s using the front door and not the back one when he hears the voice.

“Not Kenny.”

Said voice is familiar, but not in the way his coworkers’ voices are. Will turns on his heel, and there’s Derek, standing in the middle of the checkered floor. He wears a denim jacket and the hat from yesterday that is, to Will’s horror, the same hazely green color of his eyes. It sits so effortlessly atop his dark, floppy curls that it’s outrageous. His shoes, boots that don’t look like they’re made for working, are the same color— where does someone get shoes in such a specific color, anyway? He  _ must _ be rich, Will decides. At his full height, he’s tall and well-built; the two of them are probably about the same size, come to think of it. His warm brown skin seems to shine even in the artificial light of the diner, and his bag hangs around his body by its thick strap.

He is the most beautiful, ethereal human being Will has ever seen in his life, and he  _ hates _ it.

He hates it so much, in fact, that he doesn’t say out of the gate what he should say, which is,  _ I have your notebook _ . Instead, his first words to him are, “You again.”

“Look, hear me out.” Derek walks to the bar and puts his bag down, on the same stool he’s taken up residence at for his past two days here. “I figured out what’s going on.”

Will folds his arms and holds his own. “We’re not open yet.” Derek looks around like he’s searching for a clock, so Will helps him out, pulling his pocket watch from his jeans. “It’s 6:52,” he informs him.

“But your sign says open,” Derek points out.

Will wants to roll his eyes, but restrains himself, sliding his beloved watch back into his pocket.  _ Customers.  _ “What do you need?”

“For you to listen,” Derek replies. “I came to you because you’re the only one who knows.”

“Knows what?”

“That I’m from the future.”

Will blinks at him. This again? It’s becoming quite the elaborate practical joke. He must have something better to do, right?

“I know you don’t believe me,” he continues, “but I can prove it.”

Will narrows his eyes. “How?”

“However you want me to,” he says. He takes his hat off, ruffles his hair, and plops it back atop his head. “Ask me something about the future.”

“How will I know if you’re lying?”

“Because I have no reason to?”

“Okay, okay,” Will says. He really does not want to entertain this conversation, but he can’t turn a customer away, especially not one who tips well. Also, he still has Derek’s notebook. He decides he’ll withhold that information until he figures out what the hell is going on. “If you’re from the future.” It sounds ridiculous out loud, but then, so does this entire exchange. “Who’s the president in— what year did you say you’re from? 2021?”

Derek grimaces. “Oh,  _ fuck _ that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry— it’s just, the president in 2021 is a giant fuckwad.”

_ God _ , he has a mouth like a sailor. Even Pa and his uncles, who spend (spent, in Pa’s case) months at sea, don’t curse like this. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Fine— fine.” Derek shakes off his apparent disgust and tries again. “It’s…”

But then the strangest thing happens. Derek is talking— Will can see his mouth moving— but he can’t understand what he says. He goes on for a moment before it quiets, and Will rubs at his left ear, like that’ll fix the problem. “What?”

Derek lets out a long groan, and then starts talking again. But the same problem persists. He’s explaining something; he talks with his hands, but his words are still nonsense. It’s gibberish, radio static. Will cuts him off, raising his voice a little. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Well, I guess he isn’t born yet,” Derek says, and Will breathes a sigh of relief at the fact that this speech is clear; he’s not suffering from hearing loss. “But—” The remainder of his sentence is garbled. Will furrows his brows.

“No, no,” he says. “Your— your words, they aren’t making sense.”

“Yeah,” Derek replies, “because you haven’t heard of him. And be lucky you haven’t. Even though you would probably vote for him.”

This sounds like an insult, despite the fact that Will is missing half the story. “No, because I  _ can’t understand you _ ,” he insists, growing impatient now. What’s going on? “It sounds like you’re speaking in radio static.”

Derek is quiet, and it seems now at least Will has gotten through to him. “You… aren’t hearing me?”

“Not even a little,” Will replies, and okay, that’s weird. That’s really weird. “Tell me something else.”

“Uh… okay.” He pauses, leans against the back of his favored barstool. It looks for a second like he might lose his balance and fall over, but he steadies himself and says, “It’s what, ‘61? Okay, so in three years…” And then his speech is incoherent again.

“Same thing.” Will shakes his head to cut him off. “Say something else. Who wins in Vietnam?”

Derek is so clearly  _ still talking _ , but what he’s saying is a heap of garbled nonsense. Will’s stomach turns. If he thought the phone thing was the Twilight Zone, it was nothing compared to this. Why can’t he understand him? He needs it to make sense. “I still can’t hear you.”

“I can’t talk about the future,” Derek says, like he’s realizing it as he says it.

“You can’t talk about the future,” Will echoes, and in that moment, for the first time, he, terrifyingly, starts to believe him.

Derek whispers, “ _ Yo _ ,” and for a moment, they’re quiet. Will watches him across the bar, and he sees someone who, while he may be kind of annoying and slightly entitled and too beautiful to exist, may also be telling the  _ truth _ .

“If you’re from the future,” Will says, and he can’t believe he’s actually saying this out loud, actually thinking it might be real. “How did you get here?”

Derek has an answer ready for this. “I drove away from New York in 2021, got lost in a storm, and got to this town and it was 1961.”

“You accidentally time traveled?”

“I didn’t  _ know  _ I was time traveling!”

“Is time travel  _ possible _ in 2021?”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

Will shakes his head, crosses his arms again. It doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense. But Derek seems just as confused as he is, and he’s not sure at this point how he could be lying. How could he make his voice sound like that, if he were lying?

But  _ if _ it’s true, and if he really is from the future, and he’s not crazy or a con man, then how is he so calm about it? “Show me something from the future.”

“I already did,” he replies. “I showed you my phone.”

“But that was just a gadget,” Will says. “You could’ve gotten it anywhere.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t,” Derek replies, and for the first time this entire conversation, he sounds vaguely offended. “The future is full of ‘gadgets’, okay?”

Will scrutinizes him, searches for a hint in his voice. Wonders if he’ll wake up from a dream any second, at home in his empty house.

“Fine,” Derek says finally. “Fine— hold up, I’ll show you something.” He fishes into his bag, unzipping various pocket and compartments, until he pulls out a wallet. It’s the same brown leather of his notebook, which suddenly comes back to mind in a guilty flood. He should give it back. But first, they should settle this. Derek pulls something from the wallet. “Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Of course I do.”

Whatever he’s holding, he presses it against his chest. His shirt is crisp white and skin-tight, which is more distracting than it should be. “I mean do you have it with you.”

“Oh.” Will glances over his shoulder, toward the locker room, where his license is in his pocket. “It’s in my jacket.”

“Check it.” Derek puts down what he’s holding, and slides a piece of plastic across the bar. It’s bluish white, and covered in writing, with a small photograph on its left side. “That’s my license,” Derek says. “It says when I was born. See?” Derek reaches across the bar and taps a finger at a line of text that reads  _ DOB 02/14/1996 _ . “Ninety-six.”

Will turns the card over. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen. His own license is a piece of paper, and though it conveys the same basic information— his name, date of birth, address, et cetera— it  _ looks _ nothing like this. This, like the thing Derek called his phone, is elegant, refined, and… wholly futuristic-looking.

“Wait.” But the weirdest part isn’t all the information, even the dates so far in the future. The strangest thing by far on this little plastic card is the presence of a tiny version of Derek’s smiling face. There’s no doubt it’s him— the Derek in the photo has a faint five o’clock shadow, and the Derek that stands before him is mostly clean-shaven, but other than that, it could’ve been taken yesterday. “Is that— that’s your photograph?”

The weirdest thing about this license is that the Derek on it is pictured  _ in color _ .

“Yeah,” Derek says. “They took it in the DMV. Do you guys not have that yet?”

Will shakes his head. The location is not important. “How did they get it in color?”

Derek looks up as Will puts the card down. They meet eyes, and Derek’s face lights up like he’s about to shout  _ eureka _ . “Color photography!” He digs back into his wallet. “That’s it! Here, here— look.” He pulls something else from its folds, and hands it to Will. It’s a color photograph, alright, and not any of the artificial Technicolor stuff he’s seen in magazines, but an unaltered capture of real life. In it, a slightly younger-looking Derek smiles with a young Asian man of about the same age, whose head ducks to a height just shorter than Derek’s own. They’re both in what looks like ice hockey gear, although it’s much more elaborate and refined than the gear Will is used to seeing. The unfamiliar guy in the picture looks like he’s a goaltender.

But none of that really matters, because their playing sweaters are maroon. Derek’s skin is brown. The tape on the other guy’s stick is teal. The photo is in full color.

“This is me and my best friend,” Derek is saying. “When we were in college. It was 2014.”

Will turns the picture over. The back is blank, white film paper. “In color.”

“Full color, dude,” Derek says, like he knows he’s been right all along.

Wherever he came from, it’s nothing like the world Will knows. It’s nothing like the  _ time _ Will knows.

He’s not lying.

That is absolutely  _ crazy _ .

Will looks up at him. “What are you here to do?”

“I don’t  _ know _ — I told you; it didn’t happen on purpose,” he says. “And it’s just this town. Because yesterday, I drove a couple miles out, and my phone started working, and I could talk to Chowder.” He pauses. “That’s Chowder, in the picture. He lives in 2021. I talked to him. Yesterday. And when I came back for my stuff, my phone wasn’t working again.”

Will decides, silently and unceremoniously, to take what he’s saying from here on out for his word. He has no reason to lie, and Will can’t explain all the strange things about him. He’ll just have to try not to focus too hard on the way he looks. “So… if you drove away and things went back to normal for you,” he says, “why haven’t you gone home?”

He feels like there should be an obvious answer here, but for a moment, Derek is quiet. He sighs, then hangs his head. “Look— okay. This might sound weird, but… I’m… able to write here?” He adjusts the brim of his cap. It casts the perfect shadow over his face, from long eyelashes to cheekbones to full lips, oh,  _ God _ , Will, please focus. “That’s what all this is.” He gestures to his bag. “I’m a writer. I’m trying to write my next book. And I drove to New England because I was having writer’s block.” He pauses, then gives a little effortless smile. “I’m basically on vacation.”

How is he  _ so calm  _ about this. “Do your vacations usually involve time travel?”

“No— but you don’t get it,” he says. “I haven’t been able to write well anywhere else but this diner. And trust me, I’ve tried.”

Will blinks. That must be what’s inside the notebook. “Is it that important to you?”

“To write?” Derek’s smile widens. “ _ Ch’yeah _ . A writer has to write. I’m nothing if not for my art.”

He says this last part wistfully, like he’s onstage delivering a dramatic Shakespeare speech. When he snaps back to reality, after a moment, Will manages, “I wouldn’t mess around with something like this if I were you.”

“I’m taking my chances,” Derek replies. “Besides, I paid Eric for the week. Might as well stay.”

_ Might as well stay.  _ Like this is something he happened upon, rather than a freak accident that sent him here from sixty years from now.

Will looks at the picture of him and his friend one last time, then shakes his head and gives back the picture. As Derek tucks it into his wallet, Will returns to his coffee machine and lets out a sigh. Derek may be the biggest idiot in the history of idiots, and the future of them too. Kenny always tells him, the prettiest boys are the dumbest of them all. “Suit yourself.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Derek sway at the barstool his bag is on. “Is this seat taken?”

Will shoots him a look he hopes conveys his general unenthusiasm. And then Derek laughs. It’s a sweet, beautiful, breathtakingly annoying sound. “Okay. I won’t poke the bear.”

Will feels himself twitch a little, and he lets out a sigh. His coffee is ready. Halfway through pulling out a cup for Derek, he hears him start to say something above. “Oh! Wait, I forgot to ask you—”

But then there’s an interruption, in the form of footsteps from out back, and the unmistakable singing of Kent’s 7 AM voice into the empty dining room. “Goooooood  _ morning Dexy _ ! Happy Tuesday!”

“Morning, Kenny.”

“Oh, hey, curly,” Kent continues. Will looks up to find him tying his apron by the kitchen window. “You still hanging around?”

“Ch’yeah,” Derek replies with a grin. “Unless you’re about to kick me out for being here before hours.”

“It’s seven-oh-two,” Kent replies.

“Oh. Shit.” Derek’s grin widens. “Guess it’s not before hours anymore. I thought your barkeep was about to boot my ass.”

Will makes sure Derek sees when he rolls his eyes. Infuriatingly, this only seems to enable him. His grin looks more like a smirk.

“But what does bring you here so early?” Kent asks, as he opens up the cash register.

Derek shrugs, swiveling around in his chair. “Got an early start today.”

Without being interrupted this time, Will pulls the cup and saucer out from under the bar, then pours Derek’s coffee the way he’s been taking it for the past two days. “Hey, thanks, man,” Derek says, as he slides him the cup.

“Don’t mention it.”

“But wait, I need to ask you.” Derek puts both hands on the bartop, like this is very serious. The front door jingles; their earliest regular, old Mr. Porter, is here for his black coffee and eggs. “I lost something here yesterday. My notebook. Have you seen it? It’s kind of, like, my whole livelihood.”

This is a little dramatic, but Will chooses not to comment on that. Instead, he tells him, “I have it.”

“You  _ what _ ?” Derek cries, but he’s more smiling than angry. “You stole my notebook! I’m telling Kent.  _ Kent _ ! Your employee stole my notebook—”

“I had full intentions to give it back,” Will cuts in, and his voice comes out with every bit of exhaustion Derek is inspiring in him right now. Kent, who’s handing a menu to Mr. Porter, doesn’t react, but Will sees him chuckle. “I just didn’t want someone to pick it up,” he continues. “You left in a real hurry yesterday.”

“In my defense,” Derek mutters, in a voice clearly meant only for Will, “I was a little alarmed.”

Will sighs. “I’ll be right back.”

He gets the notebook from his truck, passing River on his way back inside. When he arrives at the bar and presents it to Derek, three more customers have entered in his absence, which means, thank God, he can start doing actual work now, and Derek can’t talk to him.

Well. He can try. But Will has something to do besides field him.

“I cannot thank you enough,” Derek says, taking it back from him, “even though you may have stolen this because you think I’m annoying. I will choose to believe that you took it out of the kindness in your ginger heart.”

Will’s entire face warms, and he knows he’s gone bright red. Derek seems to relish in this embarrassment. He flips his notebook open, pulls a pencil out of nowhere, and adds, “But even if you did it out of malice, I forgive you.”

Will stares at him for a split second, as he writes something at the top of his page. “April eleventh, 1961,” he reads, then chuckles at himself. “Alright. Chill. Here goes.”

He tries to figure out whether he needs to say anything in response, then shakes his head, pivots away from Derek, and addresses the customer who’s just taken a seat at the bar. It’s the fire chief, Hank, another early riser. “Morning, Chief,” Will says. “Your usual?”

“You betcha,” Hank replies. “How ya doin’, Will?”

Will goes about his actual job from that point on. Annie’s wakes up for the day, and life is only slightly not-as-usual.

Because to his horror, Derek sticks around writing, his whole shift long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not accept responsibility for Derek's dumbassery. You may wonder, can a person really be that desperate to solve writer's block? According to yours truly, the author, the answer is... probably yes. But also, for Derek, there's a hot ginger waiter involved. Anyway, stay tuned because shit is about to start going down!! I'm on tumblr; [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/). :)


	8. vacation nonconvention

_ a contradiction _

_ the bleary morning _

_ doesn’t start until coffee is poured _

_ rich dark liquid filled to mug’s brim _

_ with cream _

_ and sugar _

_ or, occasionally, a splash of vanilla _

_ steaming _

_ sipped eagerly in the morning _

_ desperately in the late afternoon haze  _

_ and once more to power through the evening’s bore _

_ caffeine streams through the body _

_ into fingers that go cold with racing thoughts _

_ and heart that beats louder _

_ and louder _

_ with chest-tightening swallows _

_ and bittersweet last sips _

_ that lead to nights _

_ of restless unease _

_ and waiting _

_ for the next morning’s cup _

*

“It’s the craziest thing, Ma. I really don’t think he’s lying.”

Will bends over, sticks his hand blindly into one of the wooden cells of the chicken coop. He fishes through hay and possible dung (although he hopes the latter is not actually present) until he finds what he’s looking for, and pulls out a small, smooth green egg. “And don’t get me wrong,” he continues, placing it gently in the basket on his arm. “I thought he was, at first. I thought there’s no way. That he was pulling my leg.”

He moves to the next cell, but one of his hens is inside. Sandy is an old girl, with light-brown feathers that match the color of her namesake, and she doesn’t look like she wants to budge. “Sorry, Sandy,” he murmurs, and fishes under her just to check. “I’ll just be a second.” There’s nothing there. He moves on.

“But Ma, that color photograph… it just got the gears turning in my head.” There’s a big, brown egg in the lowest cell. He adds it to his collection. “It couldn’t all be a joke, could it? How elaborate of a joke can a man pull?”

He pauses, kneeling on the hay-covered bottom of the coop, to stick his hand out for Wendy, a black silkie hen who’s been darting around at his feet. He clicks his tongue a few times, and she nuzzles the back of his palm with the top of her head.

“And here’s what I can’t wrap my head around,” he adds. “If it’s all true. And if he really did wind up here by some freak of nature. And if he’s— if he’s from the future.” The words taste strange in his mouth, like even his voice box knows they aren’t natural. “How is he so calm about it?”

He stands with his basket of eggs. It’s not much of a collection today, but it’s better than nothing. He sells them by the dozens when he can, during peak laying season in the summer, but in the colder months, he needs them for himself.

“Because if it were me,” he says, “I would not be calm about it. I just— I dunno, Ma. How could someone get here from the future? And  _ why _ ? If it’s real, why haven’t I heard of anything like this ever happening before?”

He is aware that he sounds like a crazy person, but he’s hoping Ma’s spirit won’t judge him too much for that. She never did judge him in life.

“I guess it could be an act of God but…  _ why _ ? Why now, and why here?”

_ And why does it have to do with me? _

Of course, in life, there were things about him she never found out. But he hid them for good reasons.

“And I don’t even know why I’m still thinking about it,” he continues, leaving the coop and locking its wire door behind him. “I think maybe I need some sleep.”

Sleep. It’s all he ever wants lately. It’s like catching up on his rest will make all the fog inside his head go away. Sleeping doesn’t even make him  _ feel _ good. If anything, it makes him worse.

Mittens  _ mews  _ at him from somewhere in the rafters; it sounds like maybe she’s in the hayloft. He cranes his neck to try and catch sight of her, but no luck. “Mittens,” he says, “if I can’t see you, I can’t bring you food. Won’t you come out?”

She doesn’t. He sighs. “I’ll be back in the morning, then.”

The walk up to the house from the barn seems longer today. Actually, maybe that’s just because it feels like it’s been way too long of a day— it seems like ages ago that he opened up this morning, that Derek came to convince him of the impossible truth about their altercation the day before.

He wishes he could snap out of it.

Rationally, he knows it doesn’t affect his life. Derek said himself that he’s staying the week, so once this week is over, he’ll check out of Eric’s and he’ll be gone. But Will can’t help but think that there’s some  _ reason _ he’s here, some ominous purpose that maybe Derek himself doesn’t even know. He doesn’t think he means  _ harm _ — annoyance, maybe, but not harm. But if he really time traveled without being able to control it, what does that mean for Will’s little town in the middle of nowhere?

Ma always said everything happens for a reason. Will hated that sentiment, and still does, especially given the fact that he can never quite find a  _ reason _ to explain why she and Pa were both taken away from him so early in his life.

It could’ve been earlier. But there was never enough time with them. Now all they are is memories.

But what if she was right? What if everything really  _ does  _ happen for a reason, and Derek was sent here for some earth-shaking purpose? He hates the thought of it.

He really just can’t wait until he checks out and leaves.

“I just… Ma,” he says over the stove, as he’s getting dinner ready. There’s no meat tonight; he’s waiting on his paycheck, but there are potatoes, and one of his jars of green beans left over from the autumn canning season. The nice thing about living on a farm is that you never really have to buy your vegetables from the store. Just your seeds. “D’ya think I sound crazy?”

Somewhere upstairs, he hears a door close gently but firmly, like it’s been caught in a brisk wind. He sighs.

“Yeah. Me too.”

*

_ April 12th, 1961 _

_ Day 5 In Good Haven _

Derek’s artistic bug explodes.

Where there were blank pages and self-loathing before, there are now pages on backs of pages filled with poems, with little paragraphs of prose, with sketches and random lists. At this rate, he’ll fill his depression notebook in days, and he’ll have to move onto one of the others he packed. He made fun of himself when he was packing, that he was bringing so many notebooks; he thought for sure there was no way he’d be able to fill them all.

But if this keeps up, he’ll have to buy  _ more _ . He could have a manuscript to Jayda within two weeks. It’s enough to take all his other cares away.

When he was fourteen, he read  _ The Lightning Thief _ , the kickstarter for a long Percy-Jackson-slash-Greek-mythology phase, and he fell in love with the idea of the Muses. There are nine of them, so legend goes, and they inspire the spirit of every writer they deem worthy. There are four separate muses for different types of poetry. Derek has, at various points in his life, called upon them all.

And now, all four at once are answering.

Maybe he should build a shrine.

He knows, deep down in some rational part of himself, that he probably shouldn’t be staying in Good Haven, shouldn’t be lingering in the past like it’s a vacation destination. He has no idea how or why he got here, and what it means for his general state of well-being. He and Chowder established on the phone that time passes more quickly here than it does in the real world, though, so he could spend two weeks here, write his book, and go back to New York having only been away for a week.

Still, though. Is he really this desperate, that he’ll time-travel to write book two?

And not only that, but it’s the  _ fucking 1960s _ , and here he is waltzing around writing a book, like that shit is safe and wise to do given what he knows about this time period and the way history has treated people who look like him. But this town, small as it may be, doesn’t seem the most hostile place— the employment at the diner is multiracial, and he hasn’t dealt with any bullshit yet that he wouldn’t deal with in New York on a daily basis.

And besides, it’s not like he’s moving here or something. He’s just taking a vacation.

It’s chill.

By now, he’s observed a pattern in his inspiration; it always peaks when he’s at the diner. So after a lazy morning sleeping in, and some breakfast that Eric has saved for him, sensing that he’s physically incapable of rising a second before sunrise, he gathers his stuff and drives across town. Annie’s is busy, or at least as busy as a place like this can get on a weekday. Do these people have actual jobs, or do they just sit in the diner all day?

He almost snorts at himself. Look who’s talking.

Inside, Kent greets him with, “Curly, if you’re not careful I’ll learn your actual name.”

He flashes a grin. “It’s Derek.”

Kent takes a second to mull over this, then shrugs. “Meh. Curly suits you better.”

At the bar, his usual seat is open, and Will is bustling around doing who knows what on the other side. He hops up onto the red stool, pulls out his notebook, and spreads it ceremoniously on the bartop. He’s debating whether to say hi to Will or not when Will acts first; he pulls out a cup and pours him his coffee.

Which, fine. Derek rests his head in one hand and flashes an effortless grin. “Sup, Will.”

Though he doesn’t meet his eyes, Will offers something of a greeting back; it’s either a muttered  _ morning _ or a non-committal grunting noise. He turns away before Derek can figure out which it is, and Derek lets himself watch the back of his ginger head (giant ears protruding from under his hat included) for about two extra seconds before directing his attention back to his notebook.

He writes for a solid two hours without interruption, except for when Will refills his coffee and asks if he’s going to order anything. He declines, for the moment, since he’s still kind of full from Eric’s breakfast; maybe he’ll do lunch here today instead. The other customers at the bar cycle in and out, and Will darts around serving, putting in orders, cleaning, and doing who knows what else. Derek praises the Muses. Something is working. After all the worry he went through, he’s going to turn out just fine, after all. He was an idiot to think his well was all dried up.

In a break between poems, he lifts his head; he’s been hunched over long enough that his neck kind of aches to move. He groans and tips his head to one side until it cracks, then yanks it over to the other side, where it cracks again. He flexes his hands for good measure, then takes a sip of coffee, which finishes off his second full cup of the day.

Maybe he should chill with the caffeine.

He adjusts his hat. And that’s when he notices Will is giving him a look. Though he’s wiping down the counter a few feet away, it’s a furrow-browed, corner-of-his-eye thing, like he can’t figure out what he’s doing. He’s not sure if he feels judged or not, but there isn’t a hint of friendly on Will’s face, just endless freckles and a faint scowl.

Unfortunately, it’s a good look on him.

Then they make eye contact, and in all of two seconds, his impulse control flies out the window.

“Okay.” Derek puts down his pencil. It’s the first time he’s spoken since he got here. “That’s it. Will, I’m determined.”

Will keeps cleaning. “Determined to do what?”

“ _ Chill _ , I was getting to that,” he replies. “I’m determined to get to know you better.”

Freckled confusion. “Get to know me?”

“Look,” he says, spreading his hands wide across the bartop. “All I’m saying is, I’ve sat across from you for almost a week and I barely know anything about you.”

“Well, but,” Will says, as he puts his rag over his shoulder. “You’re a customer.”

Derek mocks a frown, but it winds up this weird, contorted expression when he almost smirks over it. “I thought we were friends.”

Will knits his brows. The little wrinkle between his eyes from the other day makes a reappearance.

“Anyway,” Derek says, tapping his pencil on the table. “Since I’m sticking around, I figure we should get to know each other.”

“I thought you were only staying the week.”

He swivels a little on his stool and shrugs. “I’ve decided to go with the flow.” Will does not respond, so he prods further. “Ch’aknow?”

Will has moved to drying off a plate with his rag that didn’t even look wet in the first place. “I guess.”

Okay. Not much enthusiasm there. But now that he’s started, he resolves that he’ll stay committed. There are few things that sound more entertaining right now than needling away at this uptight white boy.

1961 Maine man, meet 2021 New Yorker.

“So.” Derek rests his chin in one hand. He feels the beginnings of his usual stubble, and wonders if he should shave or keep it. He’s been clean-shaven since Chowder’s wedding. “Tell me something about yourself.”

“Something about myself,” Will echoes, still fake-drying the plate.

“Yeah!” Derek says. “Besides your name.”

Will takes a second, then deadpans, “I work at Annie’s Diner.”

Derek rolls his eyes.  _ Smartass. _ “Thank you for that enlightening piece of information.”

“Well, you’re the one asking all the odd questions,” Will retorts.

“It’s not odd. I’m being friendly.” He pauses, watching Will switch from fake-drying a plate to a cup. “Maybe I’m being too broad.”

Will nods, in the same way you nod when someone asks if you were paying attention, but you were looking at your phone the whole time, but you don’t want to flat-out tell them you weren’t paying attention.

“Let me think,” Derek says, then surveys the scene. The place is still kind of crowded, but the bar is less populated now, which is probably the only reason he’s able to hold Will’s attention. “Uh…” His eyes settle on Kent, who’s at the cash register, doing math on a pad of paper. He looks like he’d rather fling himself into a lake than do addition, and, honestly? Big mood. “Why does Kent call you Dexy?”

Will’s cheeks flush pink. “It’s from my last name.”

“Your last name is Dexy?”

“No.” The pink creeps to his ears, bleeding into red. “Poindexter.”

“Poindexter,” Derek echoes, then pauses. “Okay, Will Poindexter.” He pauses again. “William?”

“No.”

This is a quick response, and Derek studies him for a second before asking, “No, your name isn’t William, or no, you don’t want to be called William?”

“The second.”

“So your name  _ is _ William.”

“Yes, but I don’t go by it.”

“Okay.” Derek grins a little. He’s visibly rattled, and it’s hilariously entertaining. “Chill. So what’s—”

But before he can finish, Will whips around, facing him fully, still fake-drying but significantly more attentive to his general presence. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“What?”

“‘Chill’?” Out of Will’s mouth, it sounds like someone trying and failing to pronounce a word in a foreign language. “Why do you keep saying it?”

Derek almost laughs. “Oh—”

“Are you cold?” Will continues.

“No, it’s just—”

“Because I can ask Kent to turn up the heat—”

“No, it’s not— no, I’m not cold.” He can feel the smirk on his own face, and almost feels bad for being such a wiseass, then decides against it. “It’s just, like, something I say. It’s like… chill. Y’know?”

Will doesn’t look like he knows. He shrugs a little, then goes back to his dishes. His shoulders are broad, almost enough to pull at his shirt, which is a faded red that clashes terribly with his hair. If Derek needed any evidence that he’s looking at a straight man, that shirt is enough.

Which is, like, disappointing in that he’s hot, but also, was this really going anywhere anyway?

Except for the fact that there would be a certain amount of pride in seducing an uptight, buff waiter from the 1960s.

Okay, focus.

“Well, anyway,” he says. “Will Not-William Pointdexter.”

“ _ Poin _ dexter,” Will corrects him.

“Poindexter,” he says again, the right way this time, and he swears he sees Will twitch a little. “Are you… originally from here?”

“Yes.” Oddly enough, Will seems to lean into this conversational topic, like he’s proud of it. “Born and raised.”

“Interesting.” Derek pauses, sticks his pencil behind his ear again. “Have you ever left?”

“No,” Will says. “Not really.”

“That blows.”

“Huh?”

“I mean that’s unfortunate.”

“No, it’s not.” His front is defensive again. “Not all of us can go on random vacations to places we’ve never been.”

_ Oooof _ . That was a jab. Maybe he’s not just a grump; maybe he’s a full asshole. “You can just call me out next time. It’s okay.”

“Well, I’m just saying.” The red has returned to Will’s ears. “I don’t understand your travel habits.”

“Why, because they involve your beloved little hometown?”

“No.” Will bristles and lowers his voice. “ _ You know why _ .”

Derek shrugs, swinging his legs beneath the bar. “To each, their own.”

Will goes back to cleaning, and this time he fully turns his back, shutting Derek out of the conversation, if that even vaguely counted as a conversation. He watches him for a second, then goes back to his notebook, where the words flow just as easily.

There’s something about him, though. After a few minutes, Will comes back to him with a tall, sweating glass of ice water, which he places atop a flimsy napkin at Derek’s spot. Derek eyes it with vague suspicion, like maybe he drugged it, and then Will shrugs.

“You’ve been drinking something like four cups of coffee a day, and I haven’t seen you hydrate once.”

Okay. Now it’s weird. Does Will want to talk to him or not? Also, can his eyes stop being so fucking gorgeous? Thanks.

Fine. Fine. You know what? Derek isn’t done. “Hm… what else?”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what do you mean, what else?”

“What else about you?”

Will’s shrug is as non-committal as the way he said good morning was. “That’s all there is to know.”

“Aw,  _ boo _ !” Derek resists the urge to blow a straw wrapper at him. “No one is just as boring as their name and their hometown.”

“My town’s not boring,” Will says, defensively as fuck.

“That’s not what I meant,” Derek replies. “There’s more to a person than where they’re from.”

Will sighs. Okay, maybe he doesn’t want to talk to him. But he gave him the random glass of water, so he asked for this shit. “What’s your favorite color?”

This earns the stink eye. Derek doesn’t waver. “You’ve gotta have a favorite color.”

Finally,  _ finally _ , after the tension hangs in the air between them for a whole five seconds, Will mutters, “Blue.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Derek looks around for a comparison, and finds one in his sweater, which is conveniently colored today. He points to his own arm. “Like this blue?”

“No.” Will pauses. “Blue like the ocean.”

“How far are we from the ocean?”

Will glances toward the window, and the look in his eyes is distant. “Fifteen minutes, give or take.”

Derek leans sideways, flicking his pencil at his ear. “You go there often?”

“Not really.”

“Do you like the beach?”

This, apparently, is the straw that breaks the freckly camel’s back. Will stares him down for a singular, only vaguely intimidating moment, and says, “I’m supposed to be working.”

“Oh.” Derek pauses, like this is new information. Then he decides it’s really not worth it, even if it’s entertaining, to continue to piss Will off if it’s just going to push him further and further from being friendly. So he pulls his pencil out from behind his ear and says, “Chill.”

He stays for lunch, though. He writes at that bar all day long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the "slow" part of "slow burn". Don't worry. The gay shit you crave is coming. And yes, Derek is a big gay idiot, but I love him so much. [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


	9. regularly scheduled loitering

_ April 14th, 1961 _

_ Day 7 In Good Haven _

The thing is… maybe he’s kind of invested in the diner.

It’s literally writing his book for him. He’d call it magic if he believed in it. When he gets there on Friday morning, the place seems to call his name. It’s still too cold not to wear long sleeves, but the sun is shining bright through every window, and Will is at the bar, and Kent, as usual, offers him a menu that he declines, and life is good.

“So today must be your last day here,” Will says as he pours his coffee. Derek has to catch himself from falling off his chair at the phenomenon of Will talking to him first.

“Actually,” Derek replies, trying not to focus too hard on how small the spoon he uses for sugar looks in his big, freckly hands. “It might not be.”

Will furrows his brow, then slides him the perfectly made coffee. “Why do you say that?”

Derek shrugs, reaching into his messenger bag for the magic depression notebook. “I’m not done my book yet.”

Will is so totally judging him right now. He takes a wary step backwards, still holding the coffee pot, and gives him these eyes that say  _ are you implying you’re going to tempt the laws of space and time just to write a book _ (which, honestly? If it gets the job done…)

So yeah. He’s judging him hardcore. But he looks so, so nice in the sunlight.

“Plus,” Derek adds, just to see him get mad, “the inn has great rates.”

But he doesn’t get mad. He just shrugs and turns away. There are other people at the bar, and French braid man is cooking up a storm through the kitchen window. Will, as it turns out, has an actual job with responsibilities and shit to attend to. So Derek shuts up and gets to writing, at least for the time being.

‘The time being’ lasts half an hour. When Will is returning clean dishes to his shelves below the bar, Derek stops to shake out his writing hand. He’s going to develop carpal-tunnel syndrome, but he’d happily take the fall if it meant writing like this all the time.

This place is otherworldly, like a liminal space, a portal to another dimension. Well. It kind of is that last one, in a way. But that wacky shit isn’t exclusive to the diner.

How did he ever wind up here?

Okay. You know what? He’s going to try to talk to Will again. “Who’s Annie?”

At first, there isn’t a response. Currently, from where he’s sitting Will is just the top of his head as he kneels below the bar, his awkwardly positioned cap doing nothing to hide his ears. Then he pokes his face upward. “Did you say something?”

“Yeah,” Derek replies with a grin. “I asked who Annie is. Like, Annie’s Diner?”

Will puts a forearm on the bartop, studies him for a moment, and finally asks, “Are you sure you’re an author and not an anthropologist?”

Derek almost laughs, but Will is stone-cold, still distributing his stack of clean dishes. “What makes you ask that?”

“You keep asking all these questions.” There’s the sound of pottery crashing against itself below, but from Will’s face when he stands up, it doesn’t look like anything’s broken. “Like you’re… doing research.”

“Well, I’m not,” Derek replies, “but I thought I’d ask, since I’ve been here all week. Is it just, like, a random name, or what?”

Will takes a second, like he’s trying to decide whether he should answer. Then he sighs. “Annie’s the owner,” he says. “She’s been running this place since 1936.”

Jesus Christ. He forgot he was time traveling for a second. “That’s in the middle of the Great Depression.”

“Uh… yes,” Will says, stretching out the word  _ yeeeees _ like Derek is a small child learning how to read. “She wanted to make a living.”

“Wasn’t it, like, impossible to do that during the Great Depression?”

“Look…” Will pauses. He straightens the salt and pepper shakers next to the napkin dispenser. “Life still happened during the Depression. This whole place started because Annie was making breakfast for people out of her apartment on the weekends. Just because most people had no money didn’t mean people didn’t try.”

“And so Annie succeeded?”

“Well, you’re sitting here, aren’t you?” For the first time since he met him, it looks like Will doesn’t want to punch him in the face. “I was born during the Depression. So was Kenny.”

“Wow.” Derek pauses, then smirks a little. “You look good for a ninety-year-old.”

Will reddens and rolls his eyes. He ducks his head and turns away from him, and Derek eyes his notebook. His most recent entry is a finished paragraph of random prose, so he turns the page and starts fresh.

At the front door, the entrance bell jingles. This happens all the time, so Derek barely registers it— that is, until the customer who’s just come in walks to the bar and takes the seat right next to him.

He glances up briefly. It’s a woman, probably around his age, wearing a blue gingham dress. She has pale skin and blond hair, and in her arms, she holds a small redheaded toddler.

“Good morning, Will,” she says, with a smile like sugar. “You’re looking handsome back there.”

Derek nearly deflates. This must be his wife and kid. He is not in the mood to witness obnoxious heterosexual flirting, but is anyone ever? “Morning, Rosie,” Will says, and his words are clipped like he, too, is not in the mood.

“Say hi, Cathy,” Rosie says to the toddler in her arms, then picks up her hand to wave it to Will. Will waves back at the little girl, softer than his greeting to Rosie herself.

“Can I get you something?” Will asks, but she shakes her head, still all smiles.

“Just came here to see you.”

Derek returns attention to his notebook. The idea of him having a wife and a kid is mildly disappointing, but in the same way it’s disappointing when you look up the hot actor in the movie you just saw and learn he’s straight or married or 30 years older than you. You were never going to have a chance with him either way.

Rosie chats him up for a few minutes, mostly stuff about the weather and how Randy— another kid, Derek infers— is doing so well at daycare. Then comes the real kicker. She turns Derek’s way, briefly, then looks to Will. “Who’s the new guy?”

Derek looks up at her, but her eyes are trained on Will, like she’s making a game of not meeting Derek’s eyes.  _ Okay, look. I’m literally sitting right here. _

Will takes a second to answer, then, after a glance that acknowledges his existence a little better than she did, he tells her, “This is Derek. He’s visiting town.”

Rosie looks at him, and he takes the opportunity to become the friendliest person in this whole diner. “Sup,” he says, then grins. “Lovely weather we’re having.”

Rosie scrutinizes him for a second, gives this disinterested  _ hmm _ noise, then turns back to Will. “So Will, honey, I was thinking; would you cut my grass this weekend?”

Okay. Yeah. She’s a total bitch. She’s also possibly a racist. He returns attention to his notebook, tries to ignore the way she eye-fucks Will across the bar for at least ten more minutes, and then, finally, she gets up and leaves.

“Bye now, Will,” she calls, with an obnoxious wave. “I’ll see you soon.”

Will watches her go, but not in the smiling, loving way you admire your wife— more in the way you keep your eyes on a guy who drives like a dick on the freeway until he’s safely out of view. When the door jingles behind her, Will lets out a long, therapeutic-sounding sigh, then walks to the kitchen window and picks up someone’s order.

Interesting.

When Will gets back, Derek leans on the bar, puts on his best  _ it’s 1961 and I hate my wife _ voice, and goes, “The missus can be a real handful, huh?”

But when he says this, Will looks visibly taken aback. His between-brows wrinkle appears, and he looks at Derek for a few seconds before getting out, “Beg your pardon?”

“Er— sorry, man,” Derek mutters hastily, and now he kind of feels like a dick. “I didn’t mean to, like, disrespect your wife. I just—”

Will cuts him off. “You think that woman was my wife?”

Wait, what? “Was she not?”

“ _ No _ ,” Will replies, like he’s spitting out a bad taste in his mouth. “That was Rosie Halloran. She’s my neighbor, not my wife. She’s married.”

“But her baby was ginger!”

“You know other people with red hair exist in this town besides me, right?”

“So you’re saying she’s  _ not _ your wife.”

“Yes.”

“And that wasn’t your kid.”

“Yes. Rosie’s husband has red hair, too.”

“Well,  _ do _ you have a wife, so this doesn’t happen again?”

Will shakes his head. “I’m not married.”

_ Score!  _ False alarm! The softcore flirting game continues! Now that he thinks of it, actually, Derek didn’t have to look far. Will’s left ring finger is bare; all his fingers are, in fact, save the freckles. “But wait,” he says, “can I ask you a borderline rude question?”

“Well,” Will replies, pulling a rag out of nowhere, “you’ve already asked plenty of them.”

“Wait,  _ hey _ ,” Derek says. “Not fair. Hold up. Name one time I’ve asked a genuinely rude question.”

Will swipes at a cluster of crumbs on the bartop, is quiet for a second, and then sighs at his rag. “Okay. I’m sorry. I guess there’s a difference between rude and annoying.”

“ _ Hey _ ,” Derek repeats, then points to him until he looks up. “Okay, I’ll choose to ignore the fact that you just called me annoying, because you’re still talking to me.”

Will sighs again.

“And anyway,” he adds, then lowers his voice tactfully. “If she’s not your wife, why does she talk to you like she is?”

Will’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Sorry,” Derek says. “Overstep?”

“It’s just—” Will’s eyes dart from side to side, like he’s doing that thing again where he checks to make sure no one else is listening. “You shouldn’t accuse a lady like that.”

“I’m not accusing,” Derek replies. “I’m making an observation. But hey, you’re quite the gentleman, huh?—”

“Rosie’s husband has a bad leg," Will says. “He got hurt fighting in Korea. They ask me for help with yardwork sometimes. I try to help people who ask me for it.”

Derek takes long enough without responding to this that Will flicks his rag over his shoulder and goes back to the kitchen window.

Derek watches him go. And not in the asshole-on-the-freeway way.

*

_ April 15th, 1961 _

_ Day 8 In Good Haven _

The next day, Will actually  _ chirps _ him.

It happens when he takes his bar seat. Will gives him a sideways glance, and he could be imagining it, but he  _ thinks _ he sees a hint of something besides the disdain he’s shown him thus far. When he speaks, his voice is low, and kind of sexy. “I see you’ve returned for your regularly scheduled loitering.”

Derek laughs at the ceiling. “And what about it?”

Will still isn’t smiling, but he’s maybe not frowning, either. “I’m just saying.”

He orders actual breakfast today, the mushroom omelet he’s become a fan of, and actually hydrates with his caffeine. When he has a few poems under his belt, he slaps his pencil into the folds of his notebook, ruffles his hair under his green hat, and says, “Will, check it. I’m offended.”

Will cocks an eyebrow, gathering dirty plates from two guys sitting on the other end of the bar. “Why?”

Derek places a hand over his heart. “Because you haven’t asked me about myself yet.”

Will carries the plates to the back window, but looks over his shoulder to ask, “Huh?”

“You know,” he says. “I asked you about yourself. You should ask me about myself.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re getting to know each other.” Derek flashes a grin. If it were 2021, he’d wink, but he really doesn’t feel like getting arrested for having The Big Gay. “Remember?”

“I already know about you,” Will says matter-of-factly.

“Oh, yeah?” Derek feels his grin widen. “What do you know about me?”

Will pulls his hat down the front of his head, but his ears protrude all the more. His hair is just a little tousled at his forehead. “You’re from New York, and you’re an author,” Will says. “You write a lot. Your best friend’s name is a soup. You played ice hockey in college.”

Derek squints. “My best friend’s name is a what?”

“A soup,” Will repeats. “Chowder.”

He snorts into his hand. Chowder will get a kick out of that one. “I think chowder and soup are different meal categories. Wait.” He backtracks, going over Will’s statements again. “How did you know I play hockey?”

“From the photograph you showed me,” Will replies.

“ _ Ohhhh _ .” He pauses. “You’re right.”

“I used to play hockey,” Will adds, like this isn’t a big deal when actually it’s the most personal information he’s gotten him to vocalize in a whole week of prodding.

Derek leans on the bar and beams. “You did?!”

“I did.” His tone vaguely resembles a middle-aged mom who decides she’s going to tell you that today is her cheat day, and she’s having an extra glass of wine, as a treat. “Up through high school. There’s an ice rink in town.”

“What position did you play?”

“Defense.”

“Right shot or left?”

“Left.”

“Yo,  _ chill _ ; I’m a right shot.”

They meet eyes for a good few seconds. The silence that hangs between them isn’t  _ nearly  _ as awkward as the other silences they’ve shared, Derek thinks. Not even close.

He’s maybe two seconds away from getting lost in his amber eyes when he decides, instead, to ask, “So were you good?”

“Were you?” Will shoots back.

He smirks. “If I say so myself.”

“Don’t get too cocky.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

“Well, yeah,” Will says. “I guess I was good.”

“Maybe we should have a pickup game sometime.”

Will shrugs. “Maybe.”

This is wild. He’s  _ got  _ him. He has him in a conversation, and Will isn’t watching him like he wants to kick his ass. This is a miracle. Derek grabs the bait and runs. “Are you an NHL fan? My best friend, Chowder, he plays in the NHL.”

“I see the Bruins scores in the paper.”

He hasn’t thought to look around for a TV set in here, but a quick search of the room confirms there aren’t any. “Do games go on TV yet?”

Will pauses, hardens a little. “I don’t have a television.”

“Oh.” He winces; it seems like he’s hit a little bit of a sore spot. “Sorry.”

“I do have a radio,” Will says, ignoring his apology. “I can hear sports broadcasts on it sometimes.”

Derek nods. He turns to a fresh notebook page and starts sketching a rink. “Chill.”

And then— get this— Will asks  _ him _ a question. “Do you— are you a fan of the NHL?”

“Ch’yeah,” Derek replies, erasing a bad attempt at the center circle. “I root for the Rangers.”

“Oh.” Will pauses. “The New York Rangers.”

“I’ve seen them at Madison Square Garden a bunch of times,” he adds.

“What is that?”

“The… stadium the Rangers play in?” He pauses his sketching to look up. “They do a bunch of other performances there, too.” Will’s confusion doesn’t fade from his face. “Like, it’s a huge entertainment space in New York.”

Will is now looking at him like he’s speaking another language, and that’s when it hits him— that  _ thing _ must be happening again. “You must’ve just said something that hasn’t happened yet,” Will murmurs.

_ Right _ . Yeah. It’s the thing where Will can’t hear him. “Could you not hear me?”

“Not at all.”

“Wow.” Derek shakes his head, feels himself grin a little. “ _ Wild _ .”

Then he bends over to finish his rink sketch.

Maybe Will isn’t the world’s  _ biggest _ asshole.

Maybe there’s hope.


	10. pretty boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title drop is in this chapter. And an unintentional John Mulaney reference. :)

_ April 16th, 1961 _

_ Day 9 in Good Haven _

Derek isn’t sure why he  _ expects _ Will to be constantly working. He isn’t even aware that that’s his subconscious assumption— that is, at least until he makes his way to the diner on a day Will  _ isn’t _ working.

It’s a breezy Sunday, and he sleeps in without really meaning to, but then again, he has nowhere to be. When he rolls out of bed circa midmorning, he makes his way downstairs to bid Eric good morning and swindle his way into a leftover piece of the quiche he made for the earlier-morning crowd. (That shit is fucking heavenly.)

With breakfast (or maybe brunch) in his system, he gathers his bag, fills it with his usual stock of notebooks, pencils, and loose-leaf paper, and heads to Annie’s for his regularly scheduled loitering.

The diner is hopping— which, he guesses, should be expected, because it’s Sunday, but when he walks in and tries to bypass the host stand, he finds things a little out of place. Where there should be Kent at the register, there’s the short waitress with the glasses— Denice, he thinks he’s heard the rest of them call her. But more importantly, where there should be Will at the bar, there’s Kent instead.

Derek falters. In fact, he stops walking altogether. No Will?

The problem with suddenly stopping in your tracks in the middle of a crowded diner is that there are other people moving all the time, so within the next few seconds, there’s a bump from behind, and an, “Excuse me.”

“Oh—” Derek stumbles forward, realizing he’s just caused the human equivalent of a pile-up on the highway. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

The couple behind him seems to scrutinize him with judgey stares as identical as their blond hair and blue eyes. Derek steps aside and lets them pass before they blow a collective gasket, then dusts himself off and walks the rest of the way to the bar. He slides onto his normal stool and looks around a little more, but there are no hot gingers in sight. 

“You’re becoming something of a regular here, curly.”

Derek spins his stool to find himself face-to-face with Kent, who’s hard at work behind the bar, in a white bowling shirt and his usual hat. He’s grinning at him over his shoulder, wiping down one of the racks in the window that opens to the kitchen.

Derek flashes a smile back, despite the fact that it feels  _ super fucking weird _ to see Kent in Will’s spot. “It’s the management. Spectacular, really.”

Kent rolls his eyes, but his friendly-if-smart-ass demeanor remains. “You’re too kind.” He finishes wiping down his rack, then turns on his heel to face him. “What can I get you?”

“Actually,” Derek says, “I was going to—”

The end of the sentence goes like this;  _ I was going to write.  _ But before he can finish, for a second he actually feels  _ sheepish _ — because sure, Will hasn’t shown much sign of objection to his lack of ordering much during the hours he sits here, but Kent is the manager, and he doesn’t want to get thrown out. He backs up, revises his words. “Maybe just coffee to start.”

“You got it,” Kent says, and then there’s a cup in front of him. He’s slightly disenchanted with the fact that, unlike Will, Kent doesn’t know his order automatically. He dumps too much sugar and creamer into his coffee on his own, lamenting the absence of a man he should definitely not be so invested in given that he’s known him for, what, nine, ten days? And does he even  _ really _ know him?

It’s fine. It’s chill. He pulls his notebook and a pencil out of his bag. He’ll make do.

Will or no Will.

*

As it turns out, this is not as easy as it sounds.

Derek goes an entire hour without moving. He downs a full cup of coffee— which, by the way, just doesn’t taste the same when Will doesn’t make it, and yeah, that’s a stupid thing to say, but maybe he’s growing attached to that stupid attractive asshole, okay? It’s no use. The words don’t come. The diner is the same, from the sunlight filtering through the front windows to the constant smell of eggs and coffee and half-burnt toast. There’s a lot of noise, but there always is— the croon of the jukebox, the steady chatter of patrons, the faint sound of pans and dishes on the move in the kitchen, with the cooks and dishwashers making conversation over it. Derek’s seat remains the same. He can order the same food. Nothing is different.

The only thing missing is Will. Turns out this is a key ingredient.

Is Will… his  _ muse _ ? It wouldn’t be unthinkable, but he tries to suspend at least a little of his disbelief; the idea of a months-long writing drought being cured just because some barkeep from the 1960s is hot-if-irritable seems… unlikely, to say the least. Derek may be a poet, but he tries to keep his head at least partially out of the clouds, for the sake if nothing else of not getting hurt.

So what gives? Why can’t he write? He gives up on trying to answer that question after about an hour of trying. No matter the reason, the words are not coming today. Diner sounds turn from white noise to a distraction; the people sitting next to him are too close. His attention goes anywhere but his poetry. It’s the same old block from before Good Haven.

After the lunch rush, when the place has quieted a little, Derek flips his notebook shut with a resounding  _ snap _ and consults Kent, who has gone from serving to barking orders at the kitchen and now back to cleaning. “Hey, ah, Kent? Could I order food?”

Kent turns to face him. “Anything your curly heart desires.”

Derek laughs. “Chill. Alright… can I get, uh…” He takes a second to decide, eyes trained on the menu he’s learned his favorites from by now, and then, in a mental shrug, orders a sandwich Will recommended to him on his third day here. Kent puts his order in, then saunters back over to the bar, where, during Kent’s moment of rest, Derek’s curiosity gets the better of him.

“So…” he says, while Kent wipes out the bottom of the sink. “Have you worked here long?”

Kent grins a little, but keeps working. “Well, considering my mama’s the founder, you might be able to figure out the answer.”

“Oh…” Derek pauses, and hears Will’s words from the other day in his head.  _ Annie’s the owner. She’s been running this place since 1936.  _ “So, wait— your mom is Annie!”

“Yes, she is.” Kent pauses, straightens up, and tosses his rag into a bin below the counter. “Stick around long enough and you’re sure to see her,” he adds. “She’s always milling around.”

Derek rests his head in one hand. “So are you next in line for the throne?”

Kent lets out a snorting noise, akin to the one Derek remembers when he first met him and asked if he was Will. “Something like that, yeah,” he replies. “I’ve got a sister, but she lives in Portland. Never had any interest in owning. I’ve always known I’d take over when my mom retires.”

Derek nods. He realizes suddenly that the old photo of the woman with the baby over the host stand must be Annie, and the baby… Kent or his sister?

Kent has gone quiet again, after calling something to French braid guy in the kitchen. Derek treads lightly on the conversational path, and lets the silence hang for a minute more before he asks, “What about Will?”

It could be Derek’s imagination, but Kent maybe narrows his gaze. “What about him?”

_ Stay cool.  _ He will not be a dumbass. He will make this as casual as possible. “Have you known him a long time?”

“All my life,” Kent replies, quick as a whip, and then cocks his head at Derek. “Where did you say you were from?”

_ Oof.  _ Busted. Kent might be onto him, given his abrupt diversion of the conversation. Derek maintains his chill. “New York.”

Kent is back to his various little bar tasks, but he keeps talking. “New York City or New York State?”

“City,” Derek replies. “I couldn’t imagine living in the country.”

Kent does his snort again. “So what in the hell brings you up here?”

Derek shrugs. There are a variety of explanations that could pass, but he settles on, “I’m on vacation.”

“Vacation to Good Haven,” Kent mutters, in a way that sounds like he’s more talking to himself than anything. He shrugs. “Huh.”

“I went to Samwell,” Derek adds, after a second of trying to decide whether qualifying it will make him sound more or less of an idiot, and then another second where he decides he doesn’t care. “In Massachusetts? Like your cousin? Eric?”

Kent’s head shoots up, and he furrows his brows. “How’d you know we were—”

“Eric told me,” Derek replies, and then he grins at him. “Chill, bro. I’m not a stalker.”

Kent still looks suspicious, but he goes back to whatever bar task he’s on. “What year did you graduate?”

“Three years ago.” This, he reminds himself, is not technically a lie. “I’m in grad school in New York now. I’m getting my PhD.”

“Your PhD, huh?” Kent says. “In what?”

The  _ truth _ is that he’s writing his dissertation on the way identity shapes literature, and even though Kent gives him sort of queer vibes, he feels like flat-out saying that it’s about race, queerness, and mental health all mixed together in some intersectional melting pot will fall on ignorant ears.

So instead, he tells him the abridged, simplified truth. “English.”

“Why would you get a PhD in a language you already speak?”

“Yo— _ damn _ !” Derek laughs at the ceiling. “You don’t have to call me out like that.”

Kent shrugs. “Just saying.”

“Anyway,” he adds, “it’s because I’m an author. And an editor, sort of. On the side.”

“That sounds fancy,” Kent says. “Have you written any books?”

“Ch’yeah,” he says, before he remembers he hasn’t, technically, in 1961 terms. “But it’s, uh— it’s not published yet. I’m here writing my second book. That’s why I came to town.”

“You came all the way to Maine from New York City… to write a book?”

Derek flashes a smile. “Sounds chill, right?”

Kent doesn’t look so convinced. “Sounds like you have a lot of free time on your hands.”

Derek snickers, and he takes a sip of coffee. “You have no idea, dude.”

No idea at all.

*

“So no Will today, huh?”

It’s his second attempt at slightly nosy conversation with Kent, and this time, it’s a little more blunt. Kent doesn’t offer much that’s readable in terms of a response, but he does say, “No, it’s his day off. He doesn’t usually work Sundays.”

_ Keep it casual.  _ He remembers that Eric told him this same thing last weekend, but he still found Will here. “Church day?”

“No.” Kent pauses. “Just so he can have a day.”

“Fair enough,” Derek mutters. “He kind of a workaholic?”

“I guess you could call it that,” Kent says. “But he’s one of my best employees.”

“Are you guys, like, friends outside of work?”

“Yes,” Kent says, but now he looks  _ mad  _ suss, and Derek worries he’s about two questions away from being mentioned to Will for this encounter. “He’s my best friend,” Kent adds, in a tone that feels final, and just like that, the window closes.

Okay. So maybe he was being a  _ little _ weird. But to be fair, Will has been entertaining conversation with him for the past eight days, and hasn’t told him to fuck off as much as he looks like he wants to… so that must be something, right?

He’s his muse. He has to be. Call it super fucking cliché, but he’s convinced— he’s writing because of Will. So he has to keep coming here. He has to figure out what it is about this guy that’s making his creative wheels spin. There can’t be no reason for it.

But God—  _ God _ , isn’t it kind of stupid to be hanging onto the idea of somebody he’s known for a week, on the off chance that his sudden burst in inspiration is because of him? He lives in the literal past. This is stupid. He’s stupid.

No. He’s fine. He’s Derek Nurse, and he is the epitome of chill. He is not being stupid, and he’s not being nosy, and most importantly, he’s absolutely not falling for someone he barely even knows.

Not a chance.

*

His words don’t come back that day.

After about another half hour of sitting in the diner, he determines his hanging around his for naught. He pays his bill, tips Kent a few dollars, and heads back to the inn, where he spends the afternoon making slightly better progress in the closed environment of his room. And by ‘slightly better progress’, that means organizing what he’s written so far into a continuous stream, which seems to have something in common.

At five o’clock, Derek tips back in his chair and reads over his work.

_ you don’t find love in this place _

_ love finds you _

_ somewhere in the sound of americana dreams on the jukebox _

_ sandwiched into booths _

_ or spun onto bar stools _

_ baked into pies the size of dinner plates _

_ in a cup filled to the brim with subpar coffee, _

_ hot without asking to be, _

_ just the way you like it _

_ between strangers _

_ with nothing more than banter and toast crumbs in common _

_ swept _

_ off the counter _

_ at the end of the night _

Alright.

Maybe he’s in a little over his head.

*

_ April 17th, 1961 _

_ Day 10 In Good Haven _

Will is on close tonight.

At least he’s not alone. Kent is staying to help him. It’s been a busy dinner shift, and he feels at least halfway to dead on his feet. He can’t decide what the worst part about closing tonight is— that he also has to open tomorrow, or that he still has to go out to the barn and do his chores when he gets home.

Okay, he can’t think like that. The animals didn’t do anything wrong. And he’s not one to complain about work, at all.

It’s just… a lot, he thinks, fielding Derek while he’s working. He hasn’t the foggiest idea why he hasn’t left Good Haven yet, but at his current rate of visitation to the diner, it looks like he’s a regular for the short-term future. And it’s not that he’s a  _ bad  _ customer; he tips well, actually, and it’s not like he doesn’t order anything.

It’s… just that he’s so  _ calm _ about his situation, and now Will is pretty sure he thinks they’re friends. Sure, he talks to his regulars all the time, even the annoying ones, like Rosie Halloran— but those are townies, people he’s known since he was a boy. Derek is a stranger. A time-traveling stranger.

It doesn’t add up, and it’s starting to bother him.

Tonight is no different than all his shifts have been lately; Derek sits to the far side of the bar and writes in his notebook. It looks much more well-used than it did when Will picked it up a week ago. If nothing else, he truly is a prolific writer.

And he eats dinner here, too; he orders a club sandwich with extra mustard and fries somewhere around sunset and polishes the whole plate off in record time. He even eats the pickle. The amount of wasted pickles Will has had to throw out as a server here is a disgrace.

It’s Kent who kicks him out at close, and even then it’s not so much kicking out as it is a gentle suggestion. “Alright, Dexy,” he says, breezing past the bar with the big set of keys jingling in his hand. “I’m about to lock up.”

Derek’s head jerks up from his notebook. Will wonders if his neck aches, leaning over like that all day. “Oh— _ shit _ , it’s closing time, isn’t it?”

Will is internally, quietly grateful that he has Kenny here to do this for him, because he has a feeling he’d be grouchier about it, and he’s not sure he has the energy for a confrontation with this man at 9:01 PM.

“Sorry, curly,” Kent says, looking genuinely apologetic. “If it comforts you to know, we’re here all day tomorrow.” He pauses, grins a little. “And every day after that.”

Derek returns the smirk to him. Will has noticed that the two of them have established some semblance of a rapport over the past few days. “Well, in that case, I can sleep soundly tonight.” He snaps his notebook shut, then packs it, plus the variety of other possessions he’s scattered on the bartop throughout the day, into his bag. He has a habit of putting his stuff everywhere. “Alright. Well. Thanks for the service. I’ll catch you guys later.”

His tab is long since paid, but he slides a bill into the tip jar from his wallet anyway. He then gives Will some kind of cryptic head nod, slings his bag over his shoulder, and walks out the front door.

Kent locks it behind him, while Will squints and watches him through the window until he reaches his car in the lot. Even  _ it _ looks out-of-place here, too sleek to belong in Good Haven, where everything is homegrown and rusty and real.

Kent, meanwhile, flips the sign in the window to  _ Closed _ , then presses his back to the door, resting one hand on his heart. He lets out a low whistle and closes his eyes.

Will squints at him from across the room. “Long day?”

Kent shakes his head, opening his eyes again. There’s something of a fond look in them. “That boy,” he says, “is as pretty as they come.”

Will’s stomach turns a somersault for some reason, so he opts not to respond, cracking open the lid on the tip jar instead. There’s a lot here, enough for him to wonder if Denice forgot to take her tips before she left from her morning shift.

“He was here yesterday,” Kent remarks, as he bends over to shut off the jukebox. It’s been croning the same Elvis record for at least two hours. “When you were off. Got to talking with him.”

Will doesn’t look up from the jar. “Oh?”

“He’s from New York City, did you know that?” Kent pauses. “And he’s in school to get his PhD.”

“That sounds expensive,” Will mutters dryly.

“Mm. Yeah.” Kent walks from booth to booth, straightening napkin holders and ketchup bottles and who knows what else. “He’s getting it in English,” he adds. “Explains all the writing.”

“Huh.” Denice definitely didn’t take her tips. Will splits the change from the jar in half, finds an envelope under the bartop, and puts Denice’s portion in after writing her name on the front. He pockets his own tips and grabs a rag to wipe the bar down one last time. (Derek leaves crumbs everywhere. Will has made a habit of cleaning up after him.)

Kent, meanwhile, has reached the other side of the bar. He leans on it and flashes a smile that can only mean trouble, then lowers his voice. “He is real pretty, though, don’t you think?”

Will makes sure Kent can see when he rolls his eyes at him.

“Do you not think he is?” Kent asks.

Will swipes the last of the crumbs into the trash with his rag. “I’m indifferent.”

“No, you aren’t,” Kent replies, with a twinkle in his eye. “You’re blushing.”

Will feels his ears burn, which is really just fantastic. “I am not blushing.”

“Maybe a little.”

Will bats at Kent’s hands until he takes them off the bar, then wipes at the spot where they were. When he’s done, he throws his rag in the dirty bin, and tosses his apron in after it.

“Anyway, he was here at the bar,” Kent is saying, apparently indifferent to the fact that they’re supposed to be closing, “and we talked for a little while.”

The way he says this is odd. It sounds like he’s hinting at something, and he’s wearing a smirk to match the suggestive tone. Will furrows his brow and looks at him for a few seconds, but Kenny says nothing, just smiles.

Will’s stomach turns, as he recalls the way Derek grinned at Kent as he left. When Kent talks like this about a man, especially one who’s visiting town, it usually all points the same way.

The thing is… Kenny has a little bit of a reputation.

He doesn’t know how or why he does it, not with the way people were to him in school, or with the dozens of ways people have hurt him, or with the awful things people say about him, even sitting in his family’s own diner.  _ Kent Parson can turn any man with a pulse.  _ The whole town knows; near everyone talks about him like he’s dirt, and the only reason Kenny hasn’t gotten in trouble is because so far, no one has caught him in the act.

“Did you—?” He can’t finish the question.

Kent, of course, plays dumb. “Did I what?”

“Oh, come on, Kenny,” Will replies, as his gut tightens. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Kent says, even though he does.

“God, would you shut up,” Will says. “You  _ do _ know.”

Kent is quiet for a long time, then takes a seat at the barstool Derek usually sits at. He leans across the surface conspiratorially, and takes off his hat to ruffle at his cowlicks.

Finally, he bites. “Are you asking if I got with him?”

Will lets out a tightened sigh. “Yes.”

Kent tucks his hat under his arm. “How would you feel if I did?”

It’s answer enough. Will hates that his insides clench up at the thought of Kent getting with Derek. “ _ Kent _ . You have to be careful—”

Kent doubles backwards with a hand on his chest like he’s been shot. “Hey, now, who says I did?”

“You basically just admitted to it— you don’t understand; that’s—” And though he wants to, there’s a part of him that feels he shouldn’t say what he really means, which is,  _ Kenny, you stupid idiot, he’s a time traveler; why would you ever want to get tangled up in all that _ . “You really shouldn’t have done that; he’s not—”

“Dexy,” Kent says. “Calm down. I didn’t say—”

“You should  _ not _ have done that,” Will repeats. He knows his face is burning now, but he doesn’t care. He’s tired of Kenny’s antics, tired of his best friend repeatedly putting himself in danger by bedding strangers who could cost him everything with one word to the police. He doesn’t think Derek would do that, but then again, he knows nothing about Derek; he still can’t even explain to himself how he got here in the first place. “He’s not from here, Kenny.”

“Well, of course he isn’t from here,” Kent says.

“ _ No _ ,” Will snaps, “you don’t understand what I’m saying. He’s—”

“Hey—  _ hey now _ ,” Kent says, his nose wrinkling suddenly, like he’s caught whiff of a bad stench. “That’s  _ prejudiced _ , Dexy.”

Will is seething, and he knows he’s red to the ears, but he’s too pissed to care. “That is  _ not _ what I meant and you know it.”

“Well, I don’t know what else you would mean.”

“Look— Kenny, do you ever think maybe you should think twice before you go messing with men you know nothing about?” He brings his hands down on the bartop. “Do you ever think it isn’t safe?”

“Jesus. Hey. Will. Look at me.” At this, because it sounds like a call for peace, Will makes himself meet his eyes across the bar. Kent delivers his next statement calmly. “I didn’t get with him. Honest truth.”

“ _ Christ _ , Kenny.” Will feels all the knots unravel in his stomach at once, and a surge of relief washes through him like a tidal wave. “You scared me half to death.”

“And even if I wanted to,” Kent adds, “I wouldn’t.”

“Okay.” Will hadn’t realized it before, but his heart has been pounding. He wills himself to take a long breath. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. You just… you’re not careful sometimes.”

“It’s okay,” Kent says. He walks around back of the bar, and together, they start for the locker room. Kent flicks off lights as they go, casting the dining room into dark. After a moment’s silence, he asks, “Aren’t you gonna ask me why I said I wouldn’t get with him?”

Will rolls his eyes. He knows he’s the only one Kent can ever talk to about this stuff, since he’s the only one who knows his secret, but he still grows occasionally tired of talk about Kent’s various partners. “Why not?”

Kenny nudges him gently. “‘Cause I can tell you like him.”

Will nearly chokes. “I  _ what _ ?”

“You like him,” Kent repeats, with a mighty smirk. “You just about popped your lid when you were thinking I got with him.”

“That is  _ not _ why I reacted like that,” Will replies.

“Yeah, okay. If you say so.” Will tries to sputter a response, but Kent continues, “I think he likes you, too; he keeps sitting right at the bar so he can talk to you.”

Will lowers his voice to a cryptic whisper, despite the fact that he knows they’re alone in the diner, hell, alone in the building. If anyone overheard his next statement, he’d be the talk of the town. “ _ Kenny, you don’t even know if he’s like us _ .”

“I don’t have to know.” Unlike Will, Kent doesn’t bother to whisper, but his voice is still relatively soft. “I can spot em’ from a mile away.”

Will yanks his jacket off its hook in his locker, a little too forcefully, and gets out, “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” With every word from Kent, he feels his face heating up more, so he wills himself at least not to meet his eyes. “You do like him.”

No. God. Fucking no. Of course he doesn’t  _ like _ Derek. He doesn’t even  _ know _ him. He’s a regular customer with the strangest origins Will has ever heard of. His looks do not matter.

“Kent,” Will says finally, when he finishes buttoning up his jacket. He can’t help the creeping sense of paranoia that someone might be listening. He always feels this way, when they talk about things like this. “ _ Kenny _ . Even if I did. Which I don’t.” Kent looks skeptical, but he continues. “I’m— I’m not  _ like you _ , Kenny. I can’t just—”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to. Kent knows what he means. Everyone in town knows Kent messes around with men; they may view the knowledge with disgust, but it’s common knowledge all the same.

_ No _ one but Kent knows about Will. Not a soul. Not even his parents’ ghosts.

And okay, sure, he hasn’t done any messing around like Kent has, but even if he had he has a feeling no one would know. Because no one  _ suspects _ him. He may not be married, but as far as anyone knows, he’s just holding out for the right woman.

Fat chance.

He thinks Kenny is crazy for doing what he does. He’ll never understand why he’s so outward. It’s much easier to keep it inside, not to show it.

“I know,” Kent says finally, deflating a little. “I know.”

They get ready to leave in silence, and Kent shuts the locker room light, the last bulb in the place. Annie’s is silent and pitch-black, and it’ll stay that way all night long.

They leave out the back door, and Kent pulls his keys out to unlock the door next to it that leads to his apartment. “Okay, goodnight,” he says, then flashes a trademark smirk. “Sweet dreams. Don’t think about Curly.”

_ Jesus Christ.  _ Will deadpans, “Do you ever get tired of being such an insufferable human being?”

Kent swings the door open. “Aww, you fucking love me, Dexy. Don’t even try.” He reaches up to ruffle his hair. Will ducks away from him, and Kent laughs.

“Get some sleep,” he adds.

“Yeah.” Will sighs. “Night, Kenny.”

Kent can be a handful sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and drop a comment if you want to make my day. By the way, if you want an out-of-context preview of an upcoming chapter, [I posted this on my tumblr](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/190525285551/i-am-writing-a-very-very-good-scene-in-love-finds) the other day. ;)


	11. early to rise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to add a tiny content warning for very very minor allusion to alcoholism in this chapter. It's super brief and vague, but I wanted to make sure there was a heads up!

_ April 18th, 1961 _

_ Day 11 In Good Haven _

Will feels steadily guiltier in the morning.

He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because he called Kent insufferable. Maybe it’s because he lashed out at him in the first place. Sure, Kent was instigating him a little, but he does that all the time, and they have that dynamic down to a science. Kent is like his brother; they’ve been attached at the hip since they were born. Ma and Annie were even pregnant at the same time, for a few months.

Will is an awful liar. He hasn’t been to church in years, but his family— parents and extended relatives— have imprinted on him the worst case of Catholic guilt imaginable. It’s why he can’t lie well, or even conceal parts of the truth.

It’s also why he never lets himself look too long at a man, despite the truth about himself that he’s known for ten years.

On Tuesday morning, bright and early, less than twelve hours since their confrontation at closing time the night before, Will buzzes the bell to Kenny’s apartment above the diner. He’s not opening with him; River is, and Kent may contemplate murder for being woken up at the crack of dawn without needing to be, but if Will doesn’t talk to him now, he’ll feel guilty his whole shift long.

For a minute or so, there’s no answer. Will buzzes again. His pocket watch says it’s 6:31. Kent is going to kill him.

Then the intercom crackles. It’s a new addition to the building, and at least it makes it so Kent doesn’t have to leave his apartment to answer the door. “Uh, hello? Yeah?”

“It’s me,” Will says. “Let me up.”

There’s a silence on his end, then he says, “Jesus fuck, Dexy; it’s too early. Come on up.” The door clicks unlocked, and Will pulls. When it gives way, he makes his way up the steps and knocks, then fumbles with the sleeve of his button-down while he waits.

Kent answers the door in his pajamas— a gray plaid shirt and pants, his slippers, and his pink bathrobe, which he bought from the women’s catalogue in the biggest size they had, because he said it’d be comfortable. It looks it.

But still, he for sure  _ just  _ rolled out of bed. His hair is a disaster, sticking up way more than it does naturally, and his eyes are hazy with sleep, and Will gets a pang of guilt for a second.

“What,” Kent says, “in the hell, are you doing here at this time of day. It’s practically the middle of the night.”

Will takes a long breath. He’s been going over how to say it, but now, standing in front of him, it seems vaguely terrifying. “I have to tell you something.”

Kent’s eyes narrow a little. “Did someone die?”

“No— no, no.” He shakes his head, then realizes all at once that he’s shivering a little. “It’s—”

Kent, like all good best friends, seems to sense Will’s unease. He steps to the side and opens the door all the way. “Here. Come in.”

When he’s safely inside, Kent sits him down at his kitchen table. His apartment is small, but very much his own; the walls are gray and red, and he keeps his ashtray next to his favorite deck of cards on the kitchen table. There are a few pictures around, mostly of him with Annie or Will or his grandparents. Kenny’s old man left the picture before he was even born. Annie says he was a real jerk, and that there’s all there is to know about it.

_ A boy needs a father _ , the town gossips say, pretending diner staff can’t hear them.  _ Don’t you know that’s why Kent’s… the way he is? _

“Okay,” Kent says, then smacks the side of his own head like he’s waking himself up. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Will looks at him head-on. He knows he’s likely about to sound crazy, but he has to hope and pray that his best friend will believe him. “I need to tell you something,” he says, “and it sounds crazy; hell, I didn’t believe it at first, but I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve realized it’s true, and you need to know, ‘cause I can’t keep it to myself one more second.”

“Aw.” Kent puts a hand to his heart, smiling wistfully. “Dexy. Have you come to profess your undying love to me?”

“ _ Kenny _ .” He can feel his tone hinging on desperation. He has to just get it out, all at once. “Focus.”

“What’s  _ wrong _ , Will?”

Will squeezes his eyes shut and blurts, “Derek is a time traveler.”

Kent is silent. For a heart-thumping few seconds, the whole apartment is silent, and the diner downstairs with it. This silence is intimidating enough for Will to want to open his eyes again.

And when he does, Kent promptly bursts out laughing. Will frowns.

“Okay, very funny,” he chuckles. “What is this, the Twilight Zone?”

“Stop. Kenny. I’m serious,” he insists. “I know it sounds crazy, but you’ve gotta believe me. I thought it was a joke at first too. But he is. He’s from 2021. He told me himself.”

“Twenty twenty one,” Kent echoes, still laughing. He rubs at his left eye and smiles. “Yeah, that’s something.”

“I’m  _ serious _ ,” Will presses, well aware that he’s not being taken that way. “Do you think I came over here at 6:30 to play a practical joke on you?”

Finally, Kent’s smile dissolves. But instead of the shock and confusion Will expects, it’s replaced with something different altogether— concern. His brows angle upwards, and his eyes soften.

“Will… have you been to bed yet?” he asks, his tone much more gentle. “Are you okay?”

“Been to bed yet— of  _ course I’ve been to bed _ ,” Will says. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m—”

“Are you sure?” Kent reaches forward and puts a gentle hand to his elbow. Will wants to shake him off— he would if it were anyone else— but it’s just Kenny, so he lets it stay. “Have you been drinking?”

“ _ No _ ,” he replies, too forcefully, and, God, he has a headache. He just needs Kenny to believe him. He needs someone else to know. “I haven’t. I swear to you—”

“So let me get this straight,” Kent interrupts, removing his hand from Will’s arm, taking a step backwards. “You’re telling me. That Derek. Like, curly Derek. From downstairs. Came here from the year 2021. That’s what you’re telling me. And you know this for certain. And he’s said so.”

Will is quiet, but he nods. His heart might pound right out of his chest.

_ Please believe me. _

“You really mean it,” Kent says after a moment, his voice a little quieter.

“I swear it,” Will tells him. “On my parents, Kenny.”

This, Will can tell, sells him. He blinks once, fumbles with the sash of the big pink bathrobe. “That’s why I flipped last night,” Will says. “I thought if you were with him— like that, something bad might’ve happened. I still don’t understand how or why he got here. Neither does he.”

“Have you talked a lot about it with him?”

“Enough to know.”

“Well, okay.” Kent scratches his head. His cowlicks are a disaster. There’s a long silence between them, and Will checks his pocket watch. 6:41. Nineteen minutes till they’re open.

When Kent meets his eyes again, he asks, “What do I do with that information, exactly?”

Will lets out a long breath.

“I have no idea.”

*

Derek starts his day with an early-morning run.

In theory, this is a good idea. It requires him to wake up a little earlier than he normally would, but he figures, so what. It’ll be worth it, because the inspiration and the adrenaline will be flowing, out in the peaceful fresh air when no one else is awake yet.

Unfortunately, it turns out that this is actually a  _ terrible _ idea. He realizes it about two minutes in, for a variety of reasons. Number one, Bittle’s B&B is in the middle of fucking  _ nowhere _ . It’s a solid mile or two to downtown, and even though he knows the way well, he feels like running on the wooded road that leads there before the sun is fully above the trees would definitely make him susceptible to death by moose.

(Do they have moose here? Or is that Canada? Aren’t they basically in Canada? He should ask Will.)

Reason number two is that he’s still tired. He is not a morning person. He should not have tried to make himself into one.

Reason number three is the fact that it’s still kind of cold this early in the morning.

He evaluates all these reasons as he’s making his way down the front steps, but by then he’s committed, and he’s determined to complete the task if out of nothing else but spite. He will not be defeated by the fact that it’s early. He already got himself out of bed, so he might as well finish the job. He could really use a workout, to be honest. He tries to stay on top of an exercise routine in his daily life back in New York, but vacation is kind of a free-for-all, and that’s not just because this vacation is a particularly weird one.

Nonetheless. It can never hurt to get a workout in. Especially when there are hot ginger men you wouldn’t mind noticing you in the vicinity. And by the vicinity, he means the general area of town.

He wishes he had his phone. Running is better with music.

Whatever. He’s doing this. He runs through the scary wooded area, successfully does not get eaten by a moose, and proceeds to do a giant loop around downtown. He runs until the sun shines high in the sky, which is huge and blue, unclouded by the city haze a summer’s day so often holds in New York.

He knows this is the most unconventional vacation ever. But it’s also the most prolific one. And he’s starting to think that maybe, taking the world’s most surreal vacation is a price he’s willing to pay if it’ll give him his second manuscript.

It ends up being a good workout. It’s not too hot outside, but not cold, either, especially not once the sun has gone over the treeline. The only  _ real _ issue with running around Good Haven is, as it turns out, that Good Haven is really small when you think about it. He can see that certain roads branch off into more residential neighborhoods, but running around in a residential neighborhood dressed in futuristic clothes is probably a recipe for getting the cops called on you in such a small, old-fashioned town, and he  _ really _ is not trying to start his day out like that.

So he loops back around downtown. On his second or maybe third time passing the front of Annie’s Diner, he cracks. He swings through the front door, run-disheveled and refreshed, and not even a little out of breath. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t done cardio in, like, two and a half weeks.

Kent isn’t at the host stand— instead, it’s some employee he hasn’t met yet. He doesn’t know all their schedules well, but he  _ does _ think he’s starting to know Will’s. His presence at the bar is as unwavering as a lighthouse on a lonely cliff.

Okay, maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Derek doesn’t care. He saunters across the room and shakes out his curls, flashing a wide smile when he sees Will catch sight of him. “Hey, barkeep. Could you spare a glass of water for my troubles?”

Will looks surprised to see him, but there’s something else in his expression, too— scrutiny, maybe, as he looks him up and down. Derek thrills with his eyes on him. “Are you being recruited for NASA?”

“What, this?” Derek tugs at the fitted sleeve of his workout shirt. It’s a blue quarter-zip Nike thing with long sleeves, and he likes the way it hugs his form. When he looks back up at Will, he’s met with an absolutely glorious sight— Will is  _ blushing _ . Or at least reddening. His ears even join in. It’s amazing. “This is just a workout shirt.”

Will shrugs noncommittally, then reaches under his bar for a second and re-emerges with a glass of water. He plunks it on the bartop, and Derek downs it, icy cold, in three gulps. He holds eye contact with Will when he puts it down.

“Thanks.” He flashes a grin, for good measure. “I was thirsty.”

He doesn’t stay long at the diner, because he doesn’t have his actual notebook, and as fun as it is to hang on the bar and flirt with Will, he doesn’t have any money, either, and would feel bad leeching off the actual service for too long. So he heads out after another entire glass of water, resolving to come back later. “Don’t miss me,” he tells Will, and Will rolls his eyes.

He starts running again when he gets out onto the street, and it doesn’t take him long to get back to the inn. He could use a shower and maybe a cup of coffee, then he’ll start his day.

In the kitchen, there’s something of a produce crime scene. Eric is elbows-deep in fruit guts, from berries to cherries to peaches, and is reading something handwritten from a piece of paper with dozens of empty jars scattered around him on the counter.

But when Derek walks by the kitchen, Eric jumps, slams his paper down on the counter, and covers it with a bowl of peaches in a flurry of baking panic. “Yo—” Derek doubles back. His movements are almost violent. “Are you okay, dude?”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Eric breathes, looking at Derek head-on now. He wipes his brow in the crook of his elbow and lets out a laugh that sounds relieved. “I’m sorry, Derek. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you were my mama. She’s coming over today, but not ‘til later, and if you were her getting here early, she would’ve seen that I’m using my aunt Judy’s jam recipe, and woulda lost her  _ mind _ .”

Is this a thing? Jam drama? Is that just how life was in the 60s? “Uhh… chill.” Derek pauses, leans against the threshold of the kitchen. “Want me to keep a lookout for her?”

“Oh, it’s okay, honey.” Eric pulls the paper back out from under the bowl— it must be the forbidden jam recipe— and studies it again, asking, “Can I get you anything?”

“Oh, I’m okay,” Derek replies. “I’m gonna head up to my room for a little.”

“Sounds good.”

Maybe Eric is crazy for  _ baking _ reasons.

An hour later, as he’s doing laundry in the basement, he realizes he’s still thinking about Will. His face was so red this morning. And he was wearing plaid again. He looks good in plaid, Derek decides. Then again, he hasn’t really seen him look  _ bad _ .

Would he  _ mind  _ making a really good-looking guy from the 1960s question his sexuality?

No. Not at all, actually. And he’s starting to maybe even get  _ invested _ in it.

It’s the worst idea he’s had in awhile, but no worse than time traveling for writing purposes.

After all. What’s the worst that could happen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, or to leave a comment. By my count, there are approximately (checks my Poindexter pocket watch) uhhh... six chapters until an unnamed ominous event I will now start alluding to.


	12. banter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the first half of this chapter to "Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin, if you want some mood music. It's a classic song off a fantastic 1959 record, and it's what's playing in the diner while Derek conducts his usual shenanigans. :)

_ April 21st, 1961 _

_ Day 14 In Good Haven _

The closing shift is busiest on Fridays.

Derek draws this conclusion after observation of trends in patronage at Annie’s. He’s made a habit of staying until close when it’s Will on the last shift, so he’s witnessed several of these last business hours over the past two weeks, but today is the busiest it’s ever been. After sundown, people stick around to finish their meals or get their late-night breakfast fix. The place is hopping like an old dance hall, sans the dancing, but there’s music and even mood lighting.

So even though he’s been there since lunchtime, Derek figures he might as well stick around for the evening.

By now, it’s 8:32, half an hour to close, and while most people are finishing up their meals, Derek is half writing, half admiring the view. Will is in navy blue today, and it’s a good look on him. Has he always been this jacked? He’s pretty sure he has.

And no, he’s not being weird. But a little glance every now and again really can’t hurt. Plus, now Will talks to him sometimes. And that’s certainly a development.

There’s a song on the jukebox playing, something about the sea, that keeps creeping into Derek’s ears. He’s not one to get distracted by the music— he’s held up nearly two weeks writing in all this noise— but tonight, he notices. It’s worth noting that maybe this distraction is related to the fact that Kent calls to Will from the host stand when it turns on. “Hey, Dexy, it’s your song!”

Will maybe chuckles, but if it counts as a smile, it’s a forced one. He nods. “I can hear it.”

Derek listens closer. He knows this song, but he’s not sure where from. It’s thoroughly old-timey-sounding, but it’s probably contemporary music here, right? He catches a blast of a horn section and the low voice of the singer, then swivels around in his stool, catching Will’s eye across the bar. “You like this song?”

Will takes a moment to respond; he’s making himself busy putting dishes away. When he does, he sounds disinterested. “Kent thinks I do.”

“Do you not?”

“I mean.” Will pauses. “I guess I do. I have the record at home.”

Derek catches a snippet of a lyric— something about  _ beyond the shore _ . He looks at Will for a second, then down to his notebook page. He hears Will’s voice in his head, the day he asked him his favorite color.  _ Blue like the ocean. _

He takes exactly three seconds to decide whether he wants to try to engage conversation again, then he watches Will scrunch up his face to itch at one oversized ear, and he can’t help himself. “How far are we from the coast?”

Surprisingly, Will’s answer to this is quick. He doesn’t even look his way. “A few miles.”

“Yeah, like, how many?” Derek prods. “Two? Twenty?”

“Ten or so.” Will pauses. “Depends on where you go. Bar Harbor is the closest.”

“Do you go there often?”

Will narrows his eyes, even finally tearing them away from his plates. “Where’s there?”

Derek shrugs, mussing up his curls just for fun, with Will’s eyes on him. “Like, the coast, I guess.”

Will takes a second, then shakes his head and goes back to his work. “No.”

Huh. Interesting. It’s a guarded reaction, almost like a defense mechanism. There’s something here he doesn’t want to talk about.

Derek is going to figure out what it is. “Don’t get the time, or don’t like it there?”

Will’s response is clipped. “Both.”

He rests his head in one hand. “But you said your favorite color is ocean blue.”

“Doesn’t mean I like the ocean.”

He maybe looks a little annoyed now, if not pissed off. Derek treads carefully. “You don’t like the ocean, but it’s your favorite color?”

“Look—” Okay. Yeah. Definitely annoyed. And being stared down by Will doesn’t do much but turn him on a little. “What gives? Are you trying to write my biography?”

He laughs a little. “Well, that’d be interesting. But no.”

Will lets out a sigh and shakes his head, like he and Derek are longtime friends and he’s a hundred percent done with his antics. Derek almost smiles, then ducks his head to hide the expression on his face lest it contribute to Will’s irritation.

Look… it’s not that he  _ wants _ to annoy him, exactly. It’s just that it’s kind of entertaining to see him get all pressed over shit that doesn’t matter. Will draws his focus in a way that practically demands further attention, and not just because of his looks.

Also, yeah, sue him. It helps that Will is easy on the eyes.

Well, no. He’s actually kind of harsh on the eyes. He’s all sharp features and fiery tones; he stands out in a way he clearly doesn’t want to.

Derek wants to write about him.

“Will,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”

Will lets off another sigh, like he’s been defeated in their unspoken war of conversational tension. “I have a feeling you’re about to even if I say no.”

“Not true,” Derek replies, pointing his pencil at him. “I respect your boundaries.”

Will snorts like he thinks this isn’t true, which kind of sucks. Derek’s goal is minor, good-looking inconvenience, not creep.

“Well, the question is related,” he says, “so I think I’ll ask it anyway.”

Will leans against the counter, with a few feet between them. It’s a good look. “That’s what I thought.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

Will raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t think he’s serious, and he’s quiet for a few seconds. Then, “Seriously?”

Derek raises both hands like he’s pleading his innocence. “What?”

“ _ That’s _ your question?”

“Should I know the answer?”

Will rolls his eyes, which is proving to be more attractive a gesture than Derek is maybe willing to admit. “There isn’t an answer. You’re a customer. I can’t force—”

“I didn’t ask if you were going to kick me out,” he replies. “I asked if you wanted me to leave.”

“It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

Will’s cheeks are red. This is amazing. “I think maybe it does, but you don’t want to say so.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” Will snaps. “Stop trying to pretend like you do.”

“I never said I knew what you were thinking.”

“You implied it.”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to say that.”

“Then what were you trying to say?”

“That I feel like you don’t like me.”

Will looks like he wants to roll his eyes again, but he doesn’t. “Well, that’s ridiculous. I have no opinion of you.”

“Oh- _ hoh _ ! No opinion of me!” Derek flashes a wide grin. “That’s almost an upgrade. Wow, Dexy. I’m honored.”

Will pinches his brow with two fingers and closes his eyes. He mumbles something about  _ can’t believe Kenny taught you that _ .

“Hey, it’s a good nickname,” Derek says. “It’s, like— like, on my college hockey team, everyone had nicknames. Maybe that’d be yours.”

“Not everyone can go to college,” Will replies, narrowing his eyes, and Derek sighs. He flips the page in his notebook.

Tough crowd.

“We’re closing in twenty,” Will adds, placing the check next to his notebook. He goes down the bar to give identical slips of paper to the others who are lingering, and Derek definitely doesn’t watch him out of the corner of his eye. He looks back down at his notebook. The thing is nearly three-quarters full. He’s going to need to break out one of the others he packed soon.

Maybe he should leave.

But this place is fucking  _ magical _ . He’s never been so prolific in such a short period of time. Not since Samwell, at least. Maybe not ever.

_ the first sea i knew was sparse _

_ always there, _

_ just beyond the horizon— but never the first thing you see _

_ it was gray, _

_ caged into a harbor _

_ embarrassed to interrupt the concrete jungle _

_ folding into a river _

_ and opening into the deep _

_ but you don’t come to the city for the ocean _

_ you come for what’s within _

_ but the second sea, _

_ it could not have been _

_ more different _

_ this one was miles from home _

_ off the beaten path so far you need _

_ miles and hours _

_ a car, a plane, a boat _

_ just to scratch its surface _

_ it was teal, sparkling aquamarine _

_ an expanse so vast you couldn’t begin to see it all _

_ but why would you want to _

_ it was untouched _

_ holding within its surf a million secrets _

_ we’re not supposed to see _

_ but these are just places _

_ i want to know your sea _

“Have a good night, Will,” says the last remaining patron at the bar— all at once, they’ve cleared, save Derek. He hasn’t noticed them go, between his lines.

This last guy leaves three crumpled dollar bills next to his check, then dumps a few coins into the tip jar. Derek watches him get up and go, then studies the jar itself— it’s fuller than he’s seen it, probably because of the bigger crowd today, stuffed with spare change and mostly wrinkly bills. There’s a slot in the top of it just big enough to fit a dollar.

Derek glances down at his notebook page, then back at the slot on the top of the jar.

He proceeds to get either the worst idea or best idea he’s had in awhile.

He tears the page with the ocean poem out of his book, then rips it halfway through the poem, to cut off the  _ second sea _ part and the tail-end. He’s left with the fragment that is the first stanza, an unfinished thought on thin paper.

He folds it into thirds under a dollar bill, checks to make sure Will isn’t looking (he’s all the way across the room clearing two recently vacated booths), and slips it into the tip jar.

As soon as it’s through the slot past the point of retrieving, his brain sort of catches up to his impulses.  _ Shit! Fuck. Fucking stupid idiot.  _ He probably should not have done that. Will literally just said he doesn’t like the ocean. He’s going to say something to him.

Derek squints at the jar. Among the other dollar bills, his paper-dollar ensemble looks completely inconspicuous. He’s seen Will empty this jar at the end of the night two other times already. Which means he’s going to see it. Tonight.

Okay. He’s leaving now.

God he’s so stupid sometimes. Why does he exist.

Whatever, he tells himself as he’s gathering his stuff and paying his actual check. He tucks the part of the page he ripped away into the folds of his notebook, then stuffs it all in his bag. Will comes back around the bar as he’s putting his money next to the check on the table.

“Headed out?” Will asks, and he doesn’t look like he’s contemplating Derek’s murder right at this moment. That’ll change when he sees that Derek is now giving him tips in the form of poems.

_ You stupid stupid dumbass. _

Okay. It’s fine. It’s chill.

That poem is Will’s problem now.

*

Will finds the paper in the tip jar right before he leaves.

At first, he thinks it’s just an oddly discolored bill. But as he’s flattening out the coveted ones and occasional five, sifting through the loose change, sticking it carefully into his pockets, he squints at the little paper and unfolds it.

It’s not money.

_ the first sea i knew was sparse _

_ always there, _

_ just beyond the horizon— but never the first thing you see _

_ it was gray, _

_ caged into a harbor _

_ embarrassed to interrupt the concrete jungle _

_ folding into a river _

_ and opening into the deep _

_ but you don’t come to the city for the ocean _

_ you come for what’s within _

It’s a poem.

“What’s that?”

Will jumps and looks up. Kenny is finishing his closing chores, turning the window sign, untying his apron, everything routine— except this paper. Except its obvious author.

Will tucks the poem into his pocket. “Nothing,” he tells Kent. “Just a spare receipt.”

And he spends the rest of the night thinking about it.

*

_ April 24th, 1961 _

_ Day 18 In Good Haven _

“Say, Will— mind if I ask you something?”

The question comes from across the bar. Although most questions from across the bar lately have come from a certain curly-haired nuisance with awful travel habits, this morning that’s not the case. Derek isn’t here—  _ yet _ , Will finds himself subconsciously adding in his head, and he thinks it’s maybe a little pathetic that he just  _ knows _ he’s going to show up here soon, because that’s how his routine has been for over two weeks— but anyway, he isn’t here right now.

Instead, the person across the bar is Chief Hank. He’s in his uniform, but not the heavy-duty stuff, just the shirt with his name on the lapel that means he’s headed to the fire station after his breakfast. He’s one of Will’s regulars, and they went to school together. He’s young to be the fire chief, but Will read in the town paper that he demonstrated ‘exceptional competence’, so he was the ‘obvious next choice’ when the other guy retired.

“Sure thing, Hank,” Will replies, then lunges for his coffee pot. “Need a refresher on the coffee?”

“Aw, I’m alright,” Hank says with a smile. “Gotta head out soon.”

“Oh— okay, then.” Will leans against the counter. The place is hopping this morning, but then again, it always is. “So what’s your question?”

“Well, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Hank says. “That new regular, the, uh… the fella who dresses funny.” Will feels his stomach turn. Chief nods briefly towards the vacant stool at the far end of the bar, like he, too, knows it’s only a matter of time before it’s inhabited again for the day. “Ya know him?”

“Can’t say I do, Chief,” Will says, suppressing a sigh. He should have known this was coming. Good Haven is a tiny town, and any even vaguely out-of-the-ordinary happenings always become fair game for townwide discussion. Even, apparently, new regulars at Annie’s who won’t stop trying to engage Will in conversation. “He’s a tourist.”

“Hm. I see.” Hank pauses. He’s not the gossipy type— he’s just one of those small-town people who don’t know when to stop asking questions. “Only askin’ ‘cause he seems to talk to you a whole lot.”

“Yeah… I don’t know him,” Will says. His eyes linger on the empty barstool. “He’s staying over at Eric’s.”

“Seems like a friendly guy,” Hank remarks.

Will lets out a fake laugh. “Guess so.” He lets the next pause in conversation hang in the air for long enough to change the subject, which he promptly does when he decides it’s time. “How’s the station, Chief?”

Chief has plenty of fire station stories, some of them more entertaining than others, and he talks Will up for awhile, until he actually has to go to work like a regular human being on a Monday morning. Bar traffic is steady for most of the morning, predictable, even. That’s what Will likes about this job— about his life, even. Everything happens the way it’s supposed to.

It’s why Derek has thrown him so off-balance.

His arrival today is relatively unceremonious. He spreads his writing stuff out on the table, bids Will a normal good morning that, thankfully, does not evolve into further conversation (at least not yet), and writes away. Will makes his coffee. He’s starting to think this might be a normal day, with minimal need for actually fielding the presence of this enigma of a man, when Derek, of course, proves him wrong.

“So,” he says. Will catches his eye, but then has to look away. The springtime sunlight is hits him from behind, casts rays through his curls and into his hazel eyes. He’s too handsome to be a real person. Will is going to go red from his head to his feet.

“Are the ears, like… a family trait?”

Will sighs.

But then something else happens— and he’s saved, or at least this painfully embarrassing conversation can be delayed. Because over at the front of the diner, the bell on the door jingles, and in walks a middle-aged woman in a purple dress. Her hair is silver with streaks of the blond that used to be her natural color, and it’s pulled into a bun on the top of her head. She looks just like Kenny; she always has.

Denice, who is waiting tables near the door, greets her first. “Annie!”

Kent’s a close second. “Morning, Mama.”

This starts a chorus around the diner.  _ Morning, Annie! Good to see you!  _ Everyone knows Annie, and everyone loves her. She’s the whole reason this place exists in the first place, the heart and soul of this diner. Even Derek swivels around in his stool to see what all the commotion is. “Annie?” he says, squinting at the scene that’s unfolding before him. “In person?”

Annie is doing her rounds like she’s the mayor. “Morning, everyone,” Will hears her says. “How are we today?”

Derek turns his stool back around. “Holy shit, I’m  _ actually  _ about to meet her,” he says, like he’s been eagerly awaiting this. “I was starting to think she was some kind of cryptid.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially. Will somehow knows this external monologue is for his own ears only, which… well, he’s not sure how he feels about that, exactly. “Do you think she’d be offended if I asked for her autograph?”

Will snaps his eyes to Derek all at once. “Do  _ not _ .”

Derek lets out a snort. “I’m just joking, Dexy.”

There he goes again with the Dexy thing. Will makes a mental note to tell Kenny to stop calling him that at work. Derek seems to have permanently picked it up. Then again, there’s a lot that Derek seems to have picked up just from sitting here all day.

Seriously, how does he not get bored?

Annie makes her way around slowly, and Will goes about his bar business until she reaches him. Thank God, she speaks to him first, rather than addressing Derek flat-out, lest she be unwittingly subjected to some kind of indecipherable 2020s slang. “And good morning to you, Junior,” she says. All at once, Will’s stomach twists. Like all adults who are family or may as well be, Annie has always called him this— she’s his godmother; she was there when he was born— but it’s hurt every day since his parents were gone. “How are you?”

“Doing well, Annie,” he replies, holding the rag in his hands behind his back. “And yourself?”

She smiles. “Never better.”

Derek, obnoxiously, looks up at Will with a grin that could blind the sun. Luckily, Annie Parson is a force to be reckoned with, and for a blissful moment Will thinks that Derek might have met his match. “And you must be Curly.”

Will’s spirit leaves him. Flies out the window.

Derek clutches his chest. “Oh my God, she knows my name.”

Annie smiles. “Kenny told me about our new regular.”

Will is going to  _ kill _ Kenny.

Derek shakes her hand. “Annie herself,” he says. “It’s an honor. I’m Derek.”

“Very nice to meet you, Derek,” she replies, then sits down in the stool next to him. Annie does this all the time— she’ll just start talking to customers, ask them how they’re finding the service, that kind of thing. It’s a normal occurrence. It just doesn’t usually happen right in front of Will’s station, and doesn’t tend to involve time-traveling, jar-poem-leaving regulars. “New to town?”

“Just visiting,” Derek says, “but yeah.”

“What brings you to Good Haven?”

Derek points to his notebook. Will decides that cleaning the bartop for the third time this morning is more entertaining than listening to Derek tell Annie information about himself that Will already knows, so he goes back to that— but he still picks up their conversation, between his menial tasks.

“Your next book! You’re a writer?”

“Yes, I am. And with any luck, this one’s getting published.”

“Impressive.” Annie is smiling. “Send us along a copy when you’re famous.”

Derek grins back with all the bravado of a man who knows he’s charming the hell out of a poor, unsuspecting middle-aged woman. “I will.”

“And how are you liking the service?”

“Oh, it’s fantastic.” Derek raises his voice a little. “Especially your bar guy. He makes a mean pot of coffee.”

Annie laughs. Will thinks his ears might be physically burning. As in, on fire. As in, someone call Chief Hank and the fire department. “Is that so?” Annie says.

Derek catches Will’s eye with a grin that feels all too friendly. “Absolutely.”

Will tears his gaze away, just in time for Annie to consult him directly— but, thank God, she doesn’t address Derek’s claims about his ability to do his job. “Junior. How’s the farm?”

“Very good, Annie,” he replies. “Expecting baby chicks soon.”

“ _ Baby chicks _ ?” Derek cries, then, when Will pins him with the  _ keep your voice down _ evil eye, drops several decibels and repeats himself. “Sorry. Baby chicks?”

Will shrugs. “I get em’ every year.”

“Everything good at home?” she asks.

Will nods, maybe a little curtly, but not on purpose. Annie means nothing but love. She’s a mother figure— not that anyone could ever replace Ma. “Going well.”

It’s just that it’s kind of weird for people to ask you how your life is going when there’s never anything different to talk about.

Annie strikes up conversation with Derek about who-knows-what, and Will goes about his business, tuning out entirely while their discussion rolls on. River is grilling up a storm in the back, and there are plenty of people who need to be served, so he tag-teams with Denice and does all his normal duties.

There are more important things than wondering what Derek is talking to Annie about.

She leaves eventually. When she does, he catches a glance from Derek across the counter just as he’s about to dive back into his endless notebook.

Will waits for the inevitable, random question to come out. He just hopes it’s not about his ears.

“Did Annie call you Junior?”

Turns out that’s even worse.

“Yes,” Will manages.

Derek is quiet for a few seconds. They hold eye contact.

Then Will decides he’s absolutely not in the mood to explain his childhood nickname. He reaches for the nearby coffee pot. “More coffee?”

Derek grins. He’s a statue, a Greek god. Will hates it. “You know me well.”

Then he works, and Derek writes, and they settle into the comfortable rhythm they’ve adopted. He can’t decide whether he hates or likes that it’s easier this way, easier with a routine.

He gives the tip jar a few offhanded glances as the shift goes on, but if Derek puts anything inside, he doesn’t catch him doing so. He hasn’t said anything about the ocean poem he left in there on Friday, and he’s not sure he wants to.

He thinks he’s in the clear. When he empties the jar at the end of his shift, though, he finds a five-dollar bill wrapped around a hastily torn corner of notebook paper that exactly resembles the stuff the first poem was written on.

It’s three lines, a haiku.

_ burning amber light _

_ spring sunshine through the window _

_ monday afternoons _


	13. betsy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, all the echoes of canon in this chapter are deliberate! Have fun!

_ April 27th, 1961 _

_ Day 21 In Good Haven _

He is insufferably annoying.

Will wishes he never showed up in town. The amount of time he’s wasted over the past few weeks unnecessarily thinking about Derek is uncanny, and it’s starting to seriously hinder his mood. He keeps coming back to the same two thoughts— that there’s no reason a vacation should last this long, and that it  _ especially _ shouldn’t when it involves time travel.

Derek has thrown the predictable, simple routine of his small-town life completely off-kilter.

This morning, he’s slated for the afternoon shift at work, but Eric gave him a call last night about his oven and sounded kind of urgent about it, so he’s heading over to Bittle’s Inn to see what he can do. Will gets calls like this from time to time— he’s something of the town handyman, an unofficial title he wears proudly. If someone in Good Haven needs help, he feels better knowing he’s done what he can to fix what’s broken.

So he loads his toolbox into the trunk and drives across town. The inn is on the outskirts on purpose, so visitors will see it first; it’s the only place to stay in town, after all. Good Haven may be tucked away, the buffer between the ocean and the forest, but Eric fields a steady stream of visitors from all over, all year long.

He is praying, with his entire soul, that Derek isn’t around. He’s almost always at Annie’s when Will is working, and though he hasn’t thought to ask his coworkers or Kenny whether he sticks around even in Will’s absence, he’s banking on the idea that he does. Derek keeps saying, after all, that the diner is his inspiration.

He just wants to work on the oven in peace, without a beautiful man who won’t stop talking to him nearby.

It’s not safe to have thoughts like this, not safe to think of another man this way. Will has known himself for years, but even fleeting moments and lingering eyes feel a sin. Not to mention the furthest thing from permissible, especially in a town so small.

He knocks at Eric’s front door, armed with an old ball cap and his toolbox— it’s red, dented, rusty, and monogrammed with Pa’s initials, although it doesn’t really matter because they’re his initials too. Most of the tools inside are older than he is, but they get the job done, always have. You can’t teach an old wrench new tricks, but lucky for him, there aren’t so many new tricks to learn.

When Eric answers, the frantic look in his eyes matches the tone of distress he had on the phone last night. “Will,” he says. “Thank you so much for coming over, honey. And on such short notice, too.”

Eric is only three years his senior, but he talks to him like a parent. Will thinks it’s because he grew up treating him and Kenny like his little brothers, which, really, they might as well be.

“Of course, Eric,” Will replies, as he’s being ushered inside. “Anytime.”

“Come right on in.” Eric shuts the door behind him. Will hasn’t been inside the inn in several months, but it looks no different. In the sitting-room, there are a few guests clustered over tea, smoking and listening to the radio

“Morning,” he says to them with a nod, and a few of them greet him back. He does a quick scan of the room, and the kitchen opposite it, but there’s no Derek in sight. Relief washes through his system. He might be in the clear.

“Have you had breakfast yet?” Eric asks, as he leads him into the kitchen. “I’ve got muffins, and fruit, and— oh, I can make some eggs if you want em’—”

Will shakes his head, looking down at him. “I’m alright, Eric. Thank you for offering.”

“Well… if you’re sure.” Eric, like his mama, is chronically allergic to the idea of  _ not  _ feeding guests. It’s the Southern hospitality. “You just give me a holler if you change your mind while you’re working.”

Will almost chuckles a little. “Will do.” He puts his toolbox down on the counter and surveys the oven, which looks normal enough on its own. It’s a Wedgewood, eggshell white with two chambers and two drawers, plus a stove on the top. Eric calls it Betsy. “So… what’s going on here, exactly?”

Eric puts both hands on his face, in a state of great despair. “She’s not well.”

Will tips his head sideways and studies the situation. This isn’t the first time he’s been over here on oven business, and it probably won’t be the last. Betsy is tucked between two sides of the counter, and to work on her, he needs to get to the backside. “Can I pull ‘er out?”

“Be my guest,” Eric replies, so he does.

Betsy is years old, and has adapted to her spot in Eric’s kitchen the way a body sinks down a mattress with frequent use. This makes it a little hard to wrestle her out, but Will is a trained professional at tucking himself into crevices behind appliances that are too small for a six-foot-two twenty-five-year-old man. You have to do what you have to do to get the job done.

Once he’s found his way behind the oven, he sets his toolbox down next to him and tries not to let Eric hear the groan he lets out upon taking in the sight of it. It’s a  _ disaster  _ scene back here, and by no fault of Eric’s, except maybe over-baking. He knows what he can do in an attempt to help, but the thing is only going to get worse the older it gets. “So it’s the same as usual?” he asks, as he opens his toolbox. “Won’t heat up right?”

“Yeah, afraid so,” Eric says, from somewhere on the other side. “Thing is, she works eventually. Just takes a long time to get hot, and sometimes won’t stay hot. I’ve had a lot of things ruined, and…”

“It’s a real mess back here,” Will murmurs. “I won’t lie.”

“I know.” Eric sounds positively miserable. This oven is the closest thing he has to a spouse.

“But don’t worry,” Will adds. If there’s anything he can do about that misery, it won’t stick around for long. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Will,” Eric says. His blond head pokes around the side of Betsy, and he reaches to ruffle up Will’s hair— but since Will’s wearing a cap, it’s more of a pat on the head. “I’ll owe you big time.”

“No need to thank me,” he says. “And you won’t owe me anything.”

Eric smiles at him, and he gets to work.

*

Derek’s hair dries really, really well this morning.

Like, not to kiss his own ass or anything. It just does. He stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom adjacent to his room for several minutes after his shower, admiring the view. It falls perfectly away from his undercut, curls framing the top of his head and settling neatly at his forehead, where they catch a wandering ray of sun from the window.

Look… he’s really good at taking care of his hair. But curly hair almost never dries the same way twice, so it’s anyone’s guess what’s going to happen after he takes a shower. Today, he runs a dab of coconut oil through it, puts the excess on his skin for good measure, and grins at himself in the mirror.

Not bad for a guy who hasn’t done a proper self-care session in weeks.

He dons a random Samwell shirt, maroon with long sleeves (because, as it turns out, it’s still kind of cold outside here), then heads downstairs for the first time this morning. He may not be the earliest riser, but Eric has sort of grown accustomed to that and started saving him food.

There are a few people in the lounge, but Eric is in the kitchen, flipping through what looks like a magazine. He’s talking, too, and at first it looks like he’s having a conversation with himself— which wouldn’t be the  _ weirdest _ thing, since Derek has overheard him talking to pies before— but as Derek rounds the corner all the way into the kitchen, he realizes Eric isn’t alone.

“... I’ve been thinking about getting the place repainted,” he’s saying, “but now I’m thinking a new oven comes first, if it’s that bad—”

“Well, hold your horses; it might not be,” a familiar voice says, just as Derek takes in the scene. The kitchen has been upended, or at least the oven has; it’s pushed several feet out of the wall, and there’s an entire person back there. All he can see is a navy-blue baseball hat, on the top of a ginger head.

“I’m thinking maybe robin’s egg blue for the door,” Eric adds. “And keeping the yellow for the outside?”

Derek leans against the counter. “Definitely keep the yellow.”

“Oh!” Eric brightens, though his spirits are significantly dimmed, probably because there’s someone doing surgery on his oven. “Good morning, Derek.”

“‘Sup, Eric,” he says with a nod, then turns his eyes to the aforementioned surgeon, who is still mostly obstructed in the oven-corner. “Do my eyes deceive me?” he adds. “Is that who I think it is?”

Eric looks from him to the oven-lurker. “Derek, you know Will, don’t you?”

_ Top shelf, baby.  _ This morning just went from good to great. “Ch’yeah, I do. We’re regular bros at the diner.”

Will lets out a sigh from behind the oven, and Derek has never liked him more.

“Dude,” he says, craning his neck to try and see past the appliance blockade, “what are you doing behind Eric’s oven?”

“I’m fixing it,” Will replies, not looking up.

“Will’s the town handyman,” Eric supplies, “unofficially.”

“Oh, I remember,” Derek says. “You told me he could fix most anything.”

Eric smiles. “That he can.”

“Don’t jinx me, now,” Will grunts. “Betsy’s a toughie.”

“Betsy?” Derek almost laughs, but he doesn’t want to make Eric feel stupid, so he settles for a smile. He’s heard Eric refer to the oven as  _ she _ before, but was unaware she had a name. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Same as usual,” Eric mumbles, waving his hand and sighing. “She won’t heat up right. Will’s a real saint for trying to resurrect her so many times.”

“Doing what I can,” Will supplies.

Derek peeks over the counter to get a better look at him. Is it hot that he’s wielding a wrench, or that he’s covered in oven dust? Maybe. Is it hilarious that he’s trying to lean close to something in the back of the oven, but keeps getting cockblocked by the brim of his hat? Definitely, yes.

He tries to get close two other separate times, then grumbles and pulls the hat off, going to stuff it into an open toolbox next to him. It says  _ WJP  _ on the side, and it looks older than dirt, but it’s chock-full of random, dingy silver tools.

“Turn your hat around,” Derek blurts, before he can stop himself.

Will looks up at him, actually acknowledging his presence. His hands are covered in soot, and he’s in a worn-looking plaid shirt, and his hair is mussed from the way he took his hat off, and he’s, yeah, super fucking hot like this, thanks for asking. “Beg your pardon?”

“If you turn your hat around—” Derek mimes flipping something from back to front on his own head to demonstrate. “You’ll be able to get closer without taking it off.”

Will glances at his hat, which is still in his left hand, and is quiet for several seconds. Has the concept of wearing a hat backwards not been invented yet? “What, like a catcher?”

Derek shrugs. “If that helps.”

Will looks between him and the hat, vaguely suspiciously, like he thinks Derek is trying to make him look stupid. Then he tucks it backwards onto his head, tries to reach for whatever he was aiming at before, and nods. “Oh,” he says. “Okay. See what you mean.”

Fuck. Derek is going to spontaneously combust. He looks really, really good like that. His ears protrude from under it, and a tuft of hair sticks out the front. It’s a look that was made for him. “Told you it was better.” He leans against the counter as Will gets back to work. “So, like… you can actually tell what’s wrong with it?”

Will hesitates, then offers, “Well, yeah.” He pulls what looks like a wire out of the random crevice he was trying to get at before. “Say, Eric… how long have you  _ had _ this oven, exactly?”

Eric, still poring over his paint catalogue, hangs his head. “Since the war.”

“Well,  _ gee _ , that’s the problem here—”

“I know… I know.” Eric sighs. “But you know how it is! Business just isn’t—”

“No, I know,” Will interrupts him. “Trust me, I understand. I can help here. Don’t worry. Just takes a little…” He shakes his hand out. “Trial and error.”

Derek watches for a moment more, but he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, and he can almost feel the irritation radiating off of Will like heat. So he hops off the counter and strolls back over to where Eric is sitting, where he receives a compliment. “Hey, neat shirt there, Derek.”

“What, this?” Derek grins down at himself. It says  _ Samwell Hockey  _ on the front, and Eric seems to be a fan. “You like it?”

“I love it,” Eric replies, with a fond sigh. “I should break out my ol’ letter jacket sometime and show you. Did you get one?”

“A letter jacket?” Derek tries to do this thing where he falls gracefully into the seat across from Eric at the table, but his ankle catches on one of the legs of the chair, and he stumbles over himself, barely landing in the seat without face-planting on the ground.

Witnessing this near-spill, Eric raises his eyebrows. “You okay, honey?”

From behind the oven, there’s a faint snort, or maybe a suppressed laugh.

Derek flashes Eric a thumbs-up. “Totally chill,” he says, then leans back in the chair that just almost took him out. “And no, I don’t think I got a letter jacket from Samwell. I got a bunch of other stuff, though.”

Eric nods. “Well, I think it’s nifty.” He pauses, then closes his catalogue and smiles faintly. “Hey, wouldya know somethin’... all three of us in here have that in common.”

“Samwell?” Derek whips his head toward Will and the oven faster than his neck can take him. “Wait, yo,  _ chill _ , Will, you went to Samwell?”

“No,” Will calls, at the same time that Eric shakes his head.

“I meant hockey,” Eric explains. “Will played on the high school team back in his day. He and Kent were the same year. They even won the state championship one time.”

“Wait, Kent plays hockey too?” It’s a funny thought— the Kent who runs the diner like a tight ship and wears pink bowling shirts, playing alongside Will. And don’t even get him started on the thought of Will playing hockey. Lol.

“Played,” Eric replies. “We’re all a little out-of-practice, but we get a game in on the pond down by the library every now and then.” He nudges Derek’s arm, smiles a little. “You should join us one of these times.”

“In the middle of the spring?” Will butts in.

Derek rolls his eyes. “Way to exclude me, Dexy.”

“I’m just saying.” Will is still just the top of his head— with his hat backwards now— and yet his tone conveys all the annoyance in the world. “Ice won’t be here again ‘till November.”

“Well, we’re always here,” Eric remarks, gazing out the window— then he flashes Derek another smile. “You can always come back to visit.”

“Speaking of which,” Will says, “isn’t your vacation getting a little long?”

Okay. That’s it. Derek is going to square up with him. If it leads them to a bedroom, then so be it. He turns upon Eric without acknowledging the man behind the oven and lowers his voice conspiratorially. “Will wants me to leave.”

Eric laughs at full volume, shaking his head. “Of course he doesn’t, honey.”

“I can still hear you,” Will says.

“That’s convenient,” Derek chirps, and then he falls silent for awhile, lost to whatever world the oven is offering him.

It isn’t until almost an hour later, when Derek has been meandering around between his room and the kitchen and the lounge and his room again, that he even sees Will emerge from behind the oven. When that happens, he’s coming down the stairs, weighing the merits of visiting the public library for a little while before heading to Annie’s for the day’s writing. (Eric doesn’t have that many books.)

But he halts halfway down the staircase at the sound of Will’s voice. “... that should do it for now,” he’s saying. He can just barely see him in the doorway, holding his toolbox, hat still backwards (Derek’s legacy), with his head hung. In front of Eric, he looks massive. He  _ is _ massive. Derek is into it.

“I can’t say you won’t have any more problems, but it should be okay for— look, Eric, look here. I know this isn’t what you wanna hear, but…”

Oh God. He’s going to sentence his oven to death. Eric is going to cry. Derek holds onto the banister.

“... got a perfectly good oven over at my place that I don’t use hardly as much as you do—”

“Oh, no.” Eric is shaking his head rapidly. He steps backwards. “You stop it right there, Will. I am  _ not _ taking your oven.”

“But Eric, I haven’t used mine all week.” Will’s voice is somehow soft but shrill at the same time. This is highly entertaining television. “And here you are slaving away to feed your guests with an oven that hardly works—”

“Absolutely not.” Eric holds up his hand like he’s taking the Oath of Office. “You need to eat just as much as anyone else does. I’m not taking yours from you. What would your mama say?”

“That you need it more than I do,” Will replies. “I don’t mean to be a drag, Eric. I just… won’tcha look at it from my perspective? Your whole business depends on that thing, and—”

“And I can fend with it perfectly fine until I get myself a new one,” Eric says, with the tone of a person who has absolutely made up their mind. “That’s my final answer.”

Will grumbles a little protest that Derek can’t hear, but Eric ushers him to the door, pressing some kind of food in a container into his hands.

“You get along now,” Eric is saying. “You have to work. Best get a lunch in before you do.”

Derek comes the rest of the way down the stairs just in time to meet them in the lobby. Not on purpose, of course. Why would he do that?

“You working today, Will?”

Will replies with some kind of grunting noise.

“Sorry, you’re gonna have to translate. I don’t speak caveman.”

“ _ Yes _ , I’m working.” It’s a forceful statement, and Derek has to bite his lip to keep from grinning. “Of course I am.”

“Good to know.” Derek gazes off into the distance and taps his foot, for maximum annoyance factor, then shrugs and adds, “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

Will fully rolls his eyes. It’s a glorious sight.

“We both know full well you will.”

Ohohohoh. This man. Derek bites his lip again, but this time he  _ does _ grin. Will does not grin back.

Derek is in way over his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Feel free to [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, where, by the way, I recently posted a [little blog](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/190758510081/re-the-love-finds-you-update-schedule) about the future update schedule for this fic. Also, [here](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/190758955076/anyway-want-some-random-love-finds-you-chapter) are some out-of-context future chapter titles.  
> You are all lovely!!!! Feel free to leave a comment. <3<3


	14. falling for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very small-town, but you can pry the fact that Dex was raised uber-Catholic out of my cold, dead lobster claws.
> 
> By the way, if you're looking for more love finds you content, I've been posting out-of-context snippets under [this tag](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/tagged/timewarp-au-ooc) on my tumblr.

_ April 29th, 1961 _

_ Day 23 In Good Haven _

The thing about working in a small town’s only real place to eat is that you’re going to run into people you don’t want to see.

Will is used to this— almost ten years have passed, somehow, since he first started working at Annie’s, gone in the blink of an eye— but that doesn’t make it any easier when it happens. Job at the diner or not, the various residents of Good Haven are pretty much unavoidable, because in a town this small, you’re going to see someone you don’t feel like talking to sooner or later. You just have to be prepared for it. Being pleasant when he doesn’t feel up to it is something of a specialty for Will.

Today is no exception. Will’s Saturday morning shift is passing pretty routinely. He’s serving all his usual regulars, chatting up old Mrs. Wilson from the library on one side of the bar, and definitely not wondering when Derek is going to come in given that his seat is currently unoccupied. Then again, if the past few weeks have taught Will anything, it’s that Derek isn’t a particularly early riser.

The point is, things are normal. And then Father Peter comes in.

Will doesn’t notice it, at first. He’s busy at the back window with River, passing him slips from his most recent orders. The place is a zoo, and the crowd won’t die anytime soon; the only thing worse than the Saturday morning rush is the Sunday one, and that’s Will’s day off.

When he turns around, though, he notes the presence of someone new at his bar. Father Peter is an older man, well past the age of sixty, with a bald spot amid thin white hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a mole on his left cheek. He wears his typical all-black attire, complete with the collar that sets him apart from your ordinary secular citizen. He smiles as he sees Will, and gives him a wave.

“Will Junior,” he says. “How are you, son.”

_ Oh, boy.  _ Will isn’t sure he’s prepared for this today. He takes a breath and adjusts the hat on his head. “I’m doing well, Father,” he says. “Good morning. Nice to see you.”

“And you as well.” Father Peter smiles. “It’s been too long.”

It hasn’t been long enough.

Father Peter is a kindhearted man. Will is certain he doesn’t have a mean bone in his rickety old body, and he’s never done anything to wrong him. It’s just… he carries memories with him, firsthand knowledge of events in Will’s life he doesn’t care to relive during your casual day on the job at work.

And yet every time he sees Father Peter, they have the same conversation, and he ends up having to relive them anyway.

Will reaches under the bar. “Coffee?”

Father Peter nods. “That would be lovely.”

Will pours him a cup— he takes it with two creams and no sugar. He’s in here from time to time, for breakfast with Deacon John and his wife or the Holy Widows Guild Ma used to belong to or some random family from the parish. Most of his appearances happen on Sundays, though, between the 7:30 and 11:00 Masses at St. Raphael. It’s why Will doesn’t see him much nowadays.

It’s best to stick to diner business, so that’s how Will approaches him today. “Can I put in your order?”

“Hm…” Peter looks down at the menu, as if this is a very momentous decision, when he probably knows the thing by heart just like the rest of the population of Good Haven. “I think I might have to do a little looking first.”

“Alright.” Will nods, steps back from the bar. Itching for a distraction, he glances over his shoulder to see if Riv has put anything out for him to serve yet, but the rack from the kitchen is empty. “You just let me know when you’re ready.”

“I will,” Peter replies, still smiling. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Will backs up and heads to the kitchen, where he drops a few dirty rags into the hamper, swaps them for a clean one, checks to see if Johnson has any dishes, and does basically everything he can to avoid having to get in a conversation with the priest about how he should come back to church.

Unfortunately, he can’t avoid him forever. When he gets back to the bar, bringing Mrs. Wilson her eggs and rye toast fresh off the griddle, Peter closes his menu. When he looks up at Will, he wears this sad, nostalgic sort of smile, the pitied kind of thing Will is all too used to. “You’re looking more like your old man every day, Will.”

Will’s stomach turns. He pinches his lips together, mustering up a smile he’s memorized to use in response to this sentiment, which he hears constantly from the older folks in town. People who knew Pa always say this, like it’s a sad piece of trivia they can’t withhold themselves from sharing. They don’t seem to see how much it hurts. “Thank you, Father.”

Of course Peter knew Pa. Peter presided over his parents’ wedding in 1933. But not only that— Peter did his christening and his First Communion, heard his first confession, was there during his Confirmation process.

He did both his parents’ funerals, too.

“I’m praying for you,” Peter adds. Will feels sick. “How have you been?”

How has he been? He’s been the same. He’s always the same. He will never be able to wrap his head around why people in Good Haven ask him stupid questions like this. He lives and works on the farm. He comes here and mans the bar. This is all he does. Everyone knows it.

But he doesn’t bristle. He doesn’t flush. He holds his own and says, “Doing just fine. And yourself?”

“Oh, I’m just swell,” Peter says, still wearing that misty smile. “It’s lovely to see springtime coming. Our Lord is risen.”

Will refills Mrs. Wilson’s water. “That he is.”

Easter Sunday was three weeks ago. For Will, it was more or less an ordinary day.

“You know,” Peter is saying, still studying him like he’s a tragic article in the paper, not a living, breathing human being, “you’re always welcome at Mass, Will. Anytime you wish.”

Will rattles off his standard answer to this. “I appreciate that, Father.” They’ve had this conversation many times.

Will hasn’t been inside St. Raphael Parish, the church he grew up going to every Sunday, since 1952. His last day there was Ma’s funeral, and the space felt empty without her. He resolved that day that he wouldn’t be going to weekly Mass anymore.

He saw no need— still doesn’t see it— to show up on his day off to hear about God’s everlasting goodness, kindness, and whatnot.

God took his parents away.

“I know your ma would be happy to see you there,” Peter adds.

Will feels the irritation bubbling inside of him, tinged with the threat of a resurgence of grief. He knows, somewhere in his subconscious, that this is a highly inappropriate thing to say to someone, even when it’s true that Ma was one of the most devout Catholics in town. Peter isn’t communicating with the dead, last Will checked. He doesn’t have the right.

No one knows how to talk to an orphan about his dead parents, even nine years later.

But Will also can’t get angry, though he knows his face is red.

“I’m sure she would,” he deadpans, and he’s vaguely aware that Peter is still trying to evangelize him, but as he sets out to clean the sink behind the bar, he’s swept up in a memory, and his brain takes him to another time.

It was a warm, sunny spring day like this one, just after Easter back in 52. Good Haven was waking up from a long winter, with daffodils and tulips in everyone’s garden peeking their faces at the sun.

He and Ma were headed home, after a regular Sunday morning at Mass and then at breakfast. Will was driving— Ma hated driving, especially Pa’s truck, the big red 1945 Ford he got with his pension at the end of the war. Will was in love with that hulking truck, and happy to cart her around anywhere she needed to go in it; it was their only vehicle, after all.

Breakfast was with Annie and Kent that day, down at the diner. Annie, like them, had gone to Mass beforehand— she’d always be there at the 7:30 service, a few rows behind Will and Ma, with her pink Rosary beads wrapped around one hand. Kenny never went to Mass. He’d stopped when he got Confirmed, and Annie never put up much of a fight. He said there was no place for him there.

Will was starting to wonder if the same was true for him.

“... peonies should be starting soon,” Ma was saying, going on about her garden, her pride and joy. “Once they’re up, we can start selling bouquets— Annie says she’ll take some for the dining room again, and—”

“Ma?”

He knew he was interrupting, but his mind was racing, overflowing with an anxiety that needed to externalize itself, lest it consume him.

“Mhm?” For her part, Ma shifted completely out of garden mode, and looked right over at him. In her Sunday best, she was all soft tones and springtime, from strawberry blond hair in a tight coil on her head to her pale green dress to her yellow scarf and hat. “You okay, darling?”

Will’s words found their way out before he could give too much thought to their phrasing. “God loves everybody, right?” He let himself pause for a tight-chested moment before adding, “Even sinners?”

Ma’s smile was warm, kind, wholly pure. “William, we’re all sinners,” she said. “It’s prideful to think anything otherwise.”

Will hesitated. “I know— yeah, I know.”

“God loves us all the same,” she continued. “You know that.”

This time, Will let the silence in the truck hang longer. He came to a stop at the corner of Main and Elm, where Hill’s Pharmacy— closed on Sundays— sported window boxes full of brightly colored pansies.

Then Will said, in a near whisper, “Even Kenny?”

Ma was looking at him again, and he could feel her eyes, but he kept his gaze straight ahead on the road. “Of course even Kenny,” she said. He could hear her suspicion, and his heart was going to thump right out of his chest. “Why do you say that?”

“I…” He willed himself to gather his words, to sound less nervous than he felt. “I was just thinking about how he doesn’t go to Mass.” He paused, swallowed tightly. “He thinks— he thinks that God, well—”  _ Calm down. Stay calm.  _ “— hates people like him.”

“God does nothing of the sort.” Ma sounded sure of herself, and didn’t hesitate one bit. “Jesus came for all of us. Equally.”

Will swallowed again. “I know.”

“You tell Kenny that,” she said. It was the same voice she’d use to scold him, but somehow he knew he wasn’t being reprimanded, exactly.

“I… I will.”

A long silence fell then, as they drove along. Will rooted his hands against the steering wheel to prevent them both from shaking. He prayed with all his heart and soul that she couldn’t tell how nervous he actually was. Ma seemed sure that God was all-loving, and Will didn’t doubt for a second that she believed it in her heart. But they were also talking about… Kenny. Not Will. Not her own son.

“Is there something you need to talk about, love?”

Her tone wasn’t exactly accusatory; it was more an invitation to open up, but it still carried the firmness of a mother who was vaguely concerned. Which meant she was wondering about things. And oh  _ God _ , this was  _ such  _ an awful idea. Will was going to melt right here in this seat, right in front of her.

“No, Ma,” he replied. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” He could feel her gaze on him, a piercing thing he wouldn’t return lest he blush or stammer or succumb to his self-induced panic. Ma’s voice grew softer, but just as sincere. “You know I love you, William,” she told him. “Right?”

“Of course.” Will’s brain was shouting at him.  _ Stupid, stupid. You are so stupid.  _ “I love you, too.”

Ma reached one hand to rub him on the shoulder. She wore gloves in the same color as her scarf; she’d embroidered them herself a few years ago, always broke them out at Eastertime. She rubbed gently at the place where his shoulder met his neck. He was wearing Pa’s old suit jacket, the nicest thing he owned. He always wore it to Mass. “You can always tell me anything.”

“I know.” A tiny part of him wanted, in that moment, just to blurt it out. Ma was clearly opening the floor for him, letting him know that he could share his awful secrets, and maybe even signaling him to the fact that they weren’t quite as secret as he realized. But most of him clung to the idea that telling her the truth about himself would send his world crashing down.

So the urge to tell her passed, just like it had every time it was possible in the past, and would every other time he thought about doing it in the future.

“Thank you, Ma.”

That morning in the truck was the closest he ever got to telling her.

She died that November.

“ _ Gooooood _ morning Annie’s!”

Will jolts at the sink and drops his rag. He’s supposed to have been cleaning it, but it occurs to him as his rag hits the bottom with a  _ flop _ that he’s been zoned out for the past several minutes. The voice from the other side of the bar pulls him out of his head, and he tries to shake it out, rubbing his face with both hands before retrieving his rag.

He has a headache.

The voice that broke his haze belongs to Derek, of course. He’s making his lively way across the checkerboard floor, armed with that green hat he keeps wearing, his disorganized bag, and a grin that could give the sun a run for its money.

“Kent,” Derek says, “esteemed man, good to see you.” He makes some sort of shooting motion with his fingers in Kenny’s direction. Kent grins in response and snaps his fingers, like they’re doing a secret handshake. Then he whirls around and walks the rest of the way to the bar, where he sizes up Will, and his smile widens.

“And good God-damn morning to you, Dexy,” he says, jogging up to his regular barstool. “How’s the—”

_ THUNK.  _ “Uh.”  _ CRASH.  _ “Chill.”  _ THUD. _

Derek trips over the stool and falls on the ground.

It’s a loud spectacle, enough to render most of the dining room silent for a moment. Kent whirls around with an armful of menus at the host stand. Denice slows to a stop near a table, an entire tray of food on her shoulder. Father Peter looks like he’s about to say a Hail Mary for each of Derek’s bones.

All there is is the jukebox, the sizzle of Riv’s griddle, and Johnson’s clanking dishes.

Will watches Derek, an inexplicable, definitely alive heap beneath the stool, with his bag having somehow found its way onto his head, for a few of those silent seconds.

Will bites his lip, feels a smile coming on. There’s laughter bubbling up inside him, and he feels the tension in his chest rising as he tries to keep it in.

Then Derek lifts his head and flashes a thumbs-up, as if to say  _ I’m okay _ , and Will can’t help it. He bursts out laughing.

The feeling racks his whole body, and it pierces the quiet that’s blanketed the diner in witness to Derek’s fall. He doubles over and presses his wrist to his mouth like that’ll make it stop, then decides he doesn’t want it to. He laughs so hard he can feel it in his stomach, an ache to match the one in his cheeks from smiling. He thinks that’s maybe the funniest thing he’s seen in months.

Derek, who is apparently the clumsiest man to walk the Earth, finds his rickety way back to a standing position, and verbalizes his lack of injury to the onlooking patrons with a nonchalant wave. “I’m good.”

This is only fuel for Will’s laughing fit. What an  _ idiot _ . What a clumsy, stupid, painfully gorgeous idiot.

When Derek looks back at him, he’s smiling like he’s never done it before— and Will knows it’s because of his own reaction. Derek’s cheeks are even tinged just a little red, something Will has never seen on him before. Is he…  _ flustered _ ? In the moment, it doesn’t occur to him to care.

“You’re an asshole,” Derek says, leaning on the bar and beaming all the more. “You laughed before you knew if I was okay. What if I was dead?”

“You were  _ not _ dead,” Will laughs. “You’re just a klutz and an idiot.”

“That was a laughing fit of joy,” Derek replies. He goes to toss his bag on the stool next to him, then seems to realize it’s occupied by Father Peter, who is looking between the two of them with an odd expression on his face that Will is still chuckling too much to decode right now. Derek settles for putting it on the ground by his feet, then swivels a few times in his chair before adding, “You were excited at the prospect of me tripping and breaking my neck.”

Will wipes at the sides of his eyes. Somehow, the endeavor has caused him to tear up. “If that helps you sleep at night.”

Derek sits there, watching him laugh, for a few more seconds, and Will’s entire face is burning, and he props his arms against the bar to try and get himself under control. He feels like he’s just done a bunch of sit-ups. He hasn’t laughed so hard in… he doesn’t even remember how long. He can’t stop replaying Derek’s tumble over the stool in his head.

He feels people watching him— Derek, Father Peter, Mrs. Wilson, even Kenny across the room— and he does not care. It feels good to laugh.

“Alright, well,” Derek says, eventually, when Will is under control and no longer dying. “Now I know you’re not an emotionless grouch robot.”

Will rolls his eyes, bites back his smile, and pours Derek his coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! Thank you so much for reading. Only three chapters remain until the unspecified big plot event. :) Comments make my whole entire day!


	15. brunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Bitty overshares about everybody.

_ April 30th, 1961 _

_ Day 24 In Good Haven _

Will has amassed a total of five tip jar poems from Derek, and he  _ still _ hasn’t confronted him about them.

This is mostly because there’s nothing to say. They’re all weird and abstract, about autumn leaves or coffee or sunlight. This morning, his day off, he sits on the edge of his bed reading the latest, which he pulled out of the jar crumpled up within a five-dollar bill at the end of his shift.

_ i stumble into the morning _

_ half disheveled, but here _

_ wedged comfortably into a good spirit _

_ ready to barter with my pages _

_ if necessary, _

_ i’ll scrape my knees _

_ on a checkerboard floor _

_ to pry the words out of my soul _

_ then _

_ new music fills the air _

_ like the sweetest sound i’ve ever heard _

He hates these poems. He hates that Derek keeps putting them there. He has half a mind to throw them out, all five little pieces of scrap paper, because paper is all they are. But there’s a part of him that can’t, and so here they stand.

He opens his nightstand drawer and pulls out Ma’s old smoke tin, where he’s been keeping the other jar poetry. He slides this one inside, closes the drawer neatly, and walks out of his bedroom like they’re not there.

Because if you hide the painfully beautiful customer’s poetry, maybe you won’t have to think about the beautiful customer. And the fact that he is, actually, really good at writing. Will isn’t much of a poetry fan, but Derek’s words strike a chord within him somewhere. It’s a song he doesn’t care to hear.

So the strategy has become, bury the poetry, bury the thoughts about the poet.

He heads down the stairs for breakfast and he’s still thinking about the poem.

It’s a strategy easier said than executed.

*

Derek can’t stop thinking about his laugh.

The sound echoes in his ears like music. When he closes his eyes, he sees the way Will lit up— red to the tips of his ears, doubled over the bar counter, one hand over his mouth to contain the joyful noise. He  _ laughed _ . He  _ made _ him laugh. Before yesterday, Derek had barely seen him so much as smile.

And now that he’s made it happen once, he wants to do it again and again.

Will is  _ beautiful _ .

Bittle’s Inn has been busy this weekend, which has enabled Eric to make a huge Sunday brunch for all his guests. The thing is that Derek kind of sleeps through it. By the time he actually wakes up, he can still smell the fresh bread and scones and eggs and possibly pie, but the kitchen has been cleared of people. Sunday is checkout day, so the place is on its way to becoming a ghost town.

Eric himself is just sitting down to eat; he always waits for everyone else to be finished. His sink is piled high with dishes, and his usual brunch spread has been reduced to a few slices of bread, half an open jar of strawberry jam, three corn muffins in the dozen tin, and a pitcher of orange juice. Right now, he stands over the counter, buttering his toast.

“Morning, Derek,” he hums, flashing a warm smile. He’s still wearing his apron with all the little fruits on it. “How are you today?”

“I’m doing great.” He tucks his notebook under his arm and swipes a muffin from the spread. “It looks like Betsy cooperated with you for brunch.”

Eric lets out a chuckle and nods. “For now,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the appliance culprit. “She’s a temperamental woman.”

“Seems like she’s well-loved, though,” he says, as he follows Eric to the dining table. When he sits, Derek takes the spot across from him, and Eric flashes a wistful smile.

“That she is,” he says before digging into his toast. When he’s tasted a bite of the stuff, he nods slowly. “You’re right. She delivered today.”

Derek peels back the wrapper on his muffin. “That bread looks delicious. And so does this thing.”

Eric smiles again. “Thank you.”

The muffin is like Bible bread from the heavens. Derek savors it as much as he can, but it’s hard not to consume the entire thing in two bites. There  _ are _ technically two more, he reminds himself, as he looks back over his shoulder.

“How did you learn to bake so well?”

“Oh.” Eric’s cheeks are vaguely pink, the color of the strawberries on his apron. “My mama taught me everything I know.”

“Ah.” Derek nods sagely with a mouthful of muffin. “So it runs in the family.”

“Indeed it does,” he replies. “My moomaw, and my mama’s sisters, too.”

“Oh!” Derek swallows. “I met your aunt the other day.”

“Did you?” Eric raises his eyebrows. “Judy or Annie?”

“Annie.” If he squints, he can trace the resemblance between Eric and his first impression of the restaurateur. “She came in at the diner.”

“Aw, she’s sweet, isn’t she?” While Derek nods, Eric cocks his head a little, smiling with half of his face. “You’ve been spending a lot of time at that diner.”

“It’s a nice place,” Derek remarks.

Eric squints. “But no visit today, huh?”

“Nah.” He shrugs. “Sunday is for rest.” And it’s Will’s day off.

But… y’know. Eric doesn’t need to know these things. He trusts no one in this town, not even ambiguously queer innkeepers. He sets his depression notebook on the table next to his muffin wrapper and flips it open. It’s nearly full cover to cover. “But also, I don’t think I’ll be here much longer,” he tells Eric. “I’m almost done writing my book.”

“Well, congratulations, Derek!” Eric beams at him, slapping the table. “You must just feel swell.”

“I do.” For the first time in awhile, he means it. “I totally do.”

“Well, I’m very happy for you,” Eric says, as he flips through his pages, poems and fragments and sketches, small pieces of himself poured onto pages just like he always used to. “Though I’ll be sad to see you go,” Eric adds. “What do you say you’ll come back and visit sometime?”

Derek closes the notebook and wishes it were that simple. “I would love to visit.”

“Good.” Eric finishes his toast, wipes his hands on his apron, and lets out a contented sigh, shaking his head at the depression notebook. “A whole book written in a month,” he marvels. “I’ll be. Won’t ya send me a copy for the shelf upstairs?”

“Sure, Eric.”  _ In about sixty years. If you’re even still alive then. _

The thought is unexpectedly morbid, and he shakes himself out of it. He hasn’t stopped to think what becomes of all these people in his own time. Is the town still here?

“Neat,” says Eric.

Is Will still here? Old and just as jaded?

“Actually…” Derek pulls himself out of his head. “I owe a lot of this book to the diner.”

Eric puts his chin on top of his fist. “What do you mean by that?”

“I can’t say  _ exactly _ , but…” He glances to the window, to spring sunlight streaming into the space. It hits Larissa’s painting, highlights the oils in all the perfect places.  _ Man.  _ Derek misses painting. “There’s something about that place,” he says, “y’know? There’s something there that’s been inspiring me. That’s why I keep going back.”

“Mm.” Eric nods his agreement. “It’s a nice place. Annie does a good job.” When he makes eye contact with Derek again, he adds, “And so does Kent, nowadays. He’s been manager for three— four years.”

His snark is tangible. Derek has sensed the drama between the cousins, but has never had the gall to ask— until now. So what? He doesn’t even live in this century. He has no one to gossip to about it. “Do you and Kent not get along?”

“Aw, we do.” Eric shakes his head. He’s still sort of smiling, in the way you smile about someone in your family who’s a pain in the ass. “Me and Kent butt heads, but… well, you know how it is. He’s family. He’s the closest thing I ever had to a brother.” He pauses to chuckle a little. “And brothers, well… they… butt heads.”

“Yeah, I get your drift.”

Eric’s brows furrow for a moment, and Derek knows he’s just used slang that’s out of his reach, but he chooses not to address it and instead asks, “Do you have any siblings?”

“No.” Derek pauses. His childhood home, empty in the absence of ever-traveling, important parents, flashes behind his eyes. “I kind of always wanted one, though.”

“Me, too,” Eric murmurs. “It gets lonely. Cousins, at least?”

“Plenty, yeah.” He smiles a little, at the thought of his family out on the islands. “Some live closer than others.”

“Where’s your family from?”

The question is familiar, and it stings, like a weapon twisting in a wound. He hates this question, and all others like it. He hates being scrutinized for the way he looks, hates the countless curious questions and microaggressions meant to be compliments. He knows Eric doesn’t  _ mean _ to hit a sore spot. They were even just talking about their families. It’s just that he’s been asked this question so many times, in so many more insidious ways, so many ways demanding an explanation for his heritage, that today, he just doesn’t feel like talking about it.

Not even in 1961.

“New York.”

“Oh.”

Eric nods, accepts this. For his part, he doesn’t prod any further. There’s a brief silence. Derek folds his muffin wrapper into wedge-shaped fourths.

“Well, anyhow,” Eric says finally, and the tension in Derek’s shoulders lets up a little. “Kent is family.” He pauses. “I think I’ve known just about everyone at Annie’s all my life, come to think of it,” he says. “Except River. I never could figure out where River’s from.”

“Which one is River again?”

“Oh, he works in the back,” Eric replies. “He’s got long hair?”

_ French braid man.  _ “ _ Oh _ , he braids it, right?”

“Exactly!” Eric nods. “He’s a nice boy, kind of quiet. Rolled into town on his motorbike one day two years ago and settled right in. Hell of a grill cook.”

Derek grins a little. “That’s low-key badass.”

Eric squints. This time, he isn’t escaping being questioned for his modern vernacular. “Sorry. I mean, that’s cool.”

“You and your New York slang,” Eric laughs, so Derek lets himself laugh too. Then Eric leans back in his chair, counting on his fingers. “So there’s River… then Kent, of course… and Denice— I’m sure you’ve met her.”

“Oh, with the glasses.”

Eric nods. “She’s a pretty little thing, ain’t she?” He pauses. “And she works hard as all.”

“Yeah, she’s in there a lot.”

“Did you know she teaches drama at the school?”

He feels himself grinning again. “Oh, chill, no way!”

“Mm,” Eric hums. “The drama budget ain’t big, but she loves her students. That’s where she is when she’s not at Annie’s.”

“That’s sweet,” Derek says. “I love theatre.” He hasn’t been to a show in New York in ages, mostly because Broadway is always mobbed with tourists, but he’d kind of kill to see something soon. When he gets home, he decides. He’ll make more time for good art in his life.

“I’m sure she’d just light up if you asked her about it,” Eric adds.

“Maybe I will.” He has no idea what theatre is like right now, but, like, Billy Shakes is a timeless man. Denice seems chill, from his brief interactions with her.

“Hm, and…” Eric is still going through his cast of characters at Annie’s. “Johnson, the dishwasher… now, Johnson’s a little odd. I don’t see him too much at all. I  _ think _ he still works there.” He scratches his blond head, then lowers his voice a little. “Now, between me and you?” he says. “I think Johnson might be a little off his rocker.”

Eric’s level of investment in small-town gossip is kind of priceless. Derek pretends to be incredibly hooked on this tidbit of information. He’s not sure he’s even ever seen the person they’re talking about. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, he’s always telling folks to look out for ‘foreshadowing’ and wishing us ‘luck with our character arcs’.” Eric shrugs a little, waving his hand like he’s brushing away a fly.

Derek tries not to snort. This guy sounds hysterical. “Is he a writer?”

“No,” Eric says. “He’s a dishwasher.” He shrugs again. “Never could figure him out. Ain’t seen him since Christmastime, anyhow. Wife’s awful sweet, though.”

“Huh.” Derek has to meet this guy.

Eric is quiet for some time now. He reaches for Derek’s muffin wrapper, puts it on his empty breakfast plate, and pushes the whole ensemble aside. He takes a long sip of orange juice before he looks like he’s gearing up to say something else, but he looks significantly less amused and more just sad.

When the next thing comes, it’s, “And poor Will.”

_ Ohohoh.  _ This is the quality content Derek came for. “Why poor?”

“Boy’s had a tough go of it,” Eric remarks. “He’s Kent’s best friend, so he’s almost just s’much of a brother to me as Kent is. Known ‘im all my life.”

Eric is quiet for a second. He taps his fingers on the table like he’s crafting this carefully. His words are more sensitive, less water cooler talk and more hushed pity.

“He lost his folks in high school,” Eric says. “One right after the other.”

A pit sinks in Derek’s stomach. “Fuck.”

“His daddy first.” Eric keeps talking like he hasn’t just thrown an incredibly morbid piece of information into the ring. “It was a real shame. Came home from the war in ‘45 all decorated; they sent him to Korea in ‘50 and he was gone, just like that.”

“Damn.” The nausea reels through Derek and mixes with guilt. All this time, he thought Will was an asshole, but his front seems an awful lot like grief now. Both parents gone, before he even finished school. Derek’s parents may have their issues, but they’re alive and well.

“His mama got sick a year or so later,” Eric adds.

The guilt eats away at him, like an acid in his stomach, and he’s overcome all at once with the sudden feeling that he’s invading Will’s privacy. “Oh,” he offers, as a response, then tries to shift the conversation away from someone else’s traumatic loss. “Did you know them well?”

“Like family,” Eric says. His eyes are huge, Derek notices, and full of that same pity. “She couldn’t hurt a fly if she wanted to, and he’d have done anything for her and Will.” He pauses. “My mama says Will’s just like his daddy.”

“I’ve heard people in the diner say so,” Derek mutters, and he hopes to God all of a sudden that he hasn’t contributed to any rekindling of that past for Will.

“It’s true,” Eric says.

There’s a long silence. God.  _ Fuck.  _ Derek is so stupid. And he can’t shake the feeling that he has no business knowing this, even if the whole town knows about it, even if it happened years ago (for him, decades). This feels like Will’s story to tell.

“Well, Will seems like a good guy,” he tries.

“Oh, he is,” Eric says, perking up a little. “Fact, the other day, he tried to get me to swap ovens with him.” He lets off a chuckle as Derek recalls the conversation he overheard from the staircase. “You remember him coming over, don’tcha?”

“I heard him ask you about it, actually.”

Eric’s chortle becomes a full laugh. “Boy would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it more’n he did.”

_ Shirt off his back.  _ Derek almost—  _ almost _ — lets a comment slip about how that’d be a nice sight. Then he bottles it up and shakes it off. It is neither the time nor place.

But it  _ would _ be a nice sight—

Okay, Derek,  _ focus _ .

Time to change the subject.

“So… what’s your favorite thing to bake?”

Eric lights up like a Christmas tree. “ _ Well _ . Thank you for asking.”

And then pie discourse carries them into the Sunday afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter until 17! :) :) :) :) :) :) :)  
> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and thank you very much for reading!! I love your comments y'all <3<3


	16. wanting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a quickie, but a goodie!

_ May 5th, 1961 _

_ Day 28 In Good Haven _

Derek has a tattoo.

It’s the first thing Will notices when he walks in today. He solely and personally blames the weather for the incident. It’s one of the first days this spring warm enough outside to wear short sleeves. Will is in work clothes, as always, which, today, means his blue plaid button-down and jeans and tennis shoes. His sleeves are rolled up, but they always are. It doesn’t change with the weather.

Derek, meanwhile… Derek has capitalized on the temperature-related opportunity.

In other words, his shirt has short sleeves. It’s form-fitting, like most of his clothes are, and a striking shade of teal the color of a chlorine swimming pool. He wears that hat he’s so fond of backwards on his head today, the way he showed Will when he was working on the oven. Curls protrude from under it, framing the top of his head, catching rays of sun in the dining room. He sets his notebook on the counter, bids Will a good morning, and gets to writing.

And he  _ has a tattoo. _

Will does not stare. He won’t and he doesn’t and he  _ can’t _ . But he sneaks a look or two. It’s too distracting not to, and there’s a lot of shame in admitting that, but, God. Jesus. He’s never thought there could be  _ ink _ under his clothes.

It wraps around the corded muscle of his right bicep. Will can’t see too well exactly what it  _ is _ , but it starts as an intricately decorated band, then protrudes up towards his shoulder and gets cut off at the sleeve of his shirt. The dark ink is striking against his warm skin. It’s… it’s too much.

Will glances at it while he pours his coffee. Derek is writing up a storm today, in a way that’s almost frantic; it’s more urgent than his usual leisurely behavior. He peeks up at his steaming cup and flashes a smile that nearly knocks Will backwards. “Thanks, Dexy.”

Warmth rushes to Will’s face. He doesn’t smile back, though their eye contact lingers just a second, and he finds himself quite nearly swept up in the fact that Derek’s eyes are still the same color as his jade hat. “You’re welcome.”

When Derek looks away, diving back into his notebook, Will’s eyes dart to his arm again, on their own accord. It’s some kind of tribal pattern. It looks so natural on him.

He  _ almost _ tells him he might want to cover it up. He knows tattoos were more commonplace during wartime, but since then, the only people he’s heard of having them are gangs and mob members, rebels, and criminals. The only person he knows who has a tattoo is River, who has a feather on his arm. It has something to do with his heritage, but then again, River rides a motorbike and wears a leather jacket, so he falls into the  _ rebel  _ category too.

Derek is none of these things— at least, as far as Will knows. In his time, he determines, tattoos must be more common.

But here, he’s oblivious. And he bears it for the world to see.

For  _ Will _ to see.

God. Fuck. He can’t think about him like this. He hasn’t felt this way about a man in… in his whole life, actually. He’s never felt  _ longing _ like this, has never looked upon someone and recognized such out-of-reach beauty before. Derek is a shining jewel in a glass case, and he can’t afford him.

He can’t have him. He never will. There are a thousand, a million reasons why wanting him is a bad idea.

He goes about his entire morning with Derek on his mind. The tattoo is in the front of his mind every time he even thinks about letting it wander. He hopes he’s not blushing. He prays it, actually. He maintains his steady outward persona, hardened and to-the-point and thoroughly done with Derek’s shit— because oh, is he done with his shit— and he  _ does not think about him don’t think about him stop thinking about him oh  _ God—

Okay. Take a deep breath.

What pulls him out of the spiral is, actually, an interaction straight from the source, but thank God, it has nothing to do with the tattoo. While he’s refilling Derek’s water, so he won’t die of a caffeine overdose, Derek writes feverishly, and glances up at him to smile.

“Aaaand…” Derek hunkers over the notebook for a few more seconds. Then he writes a line at the bottom of a page, slaps his pencil down onto the bartop, and closes the journal with a flourish and a  _ clap _ of its cover. “ _ Done _ !”

“Done?” Will echoes, wiping his hands on his apron.

“Done!” Derek repeats, with a smile that could give the sun itself a run for its money. “I just finished my book!”

Several things pass through Will’s system at this newfound knowledge, including a turn of his stomach. His book is finished— which means— “You did?” he asks. “The whole thing? Done?”

“D-O-N-E done.” Derek radiates pride. He takes his hat off, fixes his hair both hands, flexes his arms in the process, almost stops Will’s heart, and then puts it back and takes a huge swig of his newly refilled water. “I am officially not a sophomore flop.”

Will has no idea what a sophomore flop is. All he knows is that Derek’s book is done, which means Derek is leaving, which means he can check this longing and desire at the door where it belongs. In fact, he can send it with Derek. Back to 2021. Never to be seen again.

“Well, congratulations,” he deadpans, and he’s well aware he doesn’t sound all too congratulatory.

Derek, infuriatingly, seems to read his mind. “Don’t you worry your pretty little ginger head, Dexy,” he says. Will’s face burns. “I’ll be out of here soon enough.”

In spite of the massive blush overtaking his entire body, Will rolls his eyes. “Did I say anything about that?”

Derek shrugs. “I could tell you were thinking it.” He picks up his journal and admires it for a moment, then hugs it to his chest and lets out a sigh. “This bad boy has treated me well.”

Will leans on the bar. He remembers the night he had that journal at home, the night he didn’t open it. Would he have found more like what Derek has been leaving in his tip jar?

He’s not sure he wants to know. He’s pretty sure he’ll never have to find out, which is comforting. “What happens now?”

“I send it to my agent.” Derek pauses. He slides the notebook into his bag. “But first, I celebrate. Can I order that mushroom omelet?”

Will almost—  _ almost _ — smiles at him. But he catches himself before he can.

“Sure thing.”

*

That afternoon, Derek drives to the outskirts of town, coasts down the freeway until his phone turns on, and makes an important call.

“Hello?”

“Chowder!”

“ _ Nursey _ !” The sound of a voice through a cell phone is almost alien, as is the way his car radio wakes up, the prospect of interaction with his best friend. “Duuuuude! I was starting to get kinda worried about you!”

“Aw, nah, bro; I’m  _ chill _ !” Derek beams at the wide open blue sky through his windshield. “I’m right here. Fresh outta the past.”

“Bro!” Chowder is fully shouting through the phone. “That is so fucking crazy! How are you? How was your week?”

Derek does a double take. “My  _ week _ ?”

“Well, yeah!” Chowder says. “It’s Friday. I heard from you last Saturday. Like, six days ago?”

“Dude, C— that’s wild.” He pulls over on the side of the highway, although it’s not like anyone else is driving on it. “I’ve been in Good Haven for a  _ month _ .”

“ _ What?!??! _ ”

“ _ I know _ !” Derek slaps both hands on the wheel, jumping up and down in his seat like a kid. It’s been several hours, but he’s still high off the satisfaction of finishing his manuscript. “Bro, okay— okay, what’s the date?”

“July 16th.”

“2021.”

“Yeah,” Chowder laughs, “of course 2021. Dude!!! Tell me about the past!”

He can’t hold it in for one more second, so he blurts it out. “I finished my book.”

“ _ Nuuuuuuuuuuuuurseyyyyyy _ !” Chowder’s celly is borderline  _ visible  _ through his yell. “ _ Bro _ !  _ YES _ !”

“ _ I know _ .” He can’t contain his smile. “Dude. I’ve never felt inspired like that in my  _ life _ . Shit was  _ amazing.  _ It just poured out of me. No lie.”

“Nursey, that’s  _ ‘swawesome _ ,” Chowder cries. “So what now? Are you on your way home?”

Derek takes a second.

Because technically, he’s in his car. But  _ also _ technically, his overnight bag is at Bittle’s Bed and Breakfast. And so is his outstanding room tab.

“Nursey?”

He… he has an idea.

“So the thing is.”

“Yeeah?” Chowder stretches this word.

Derek taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Technically, I’m not checked out of my inn yet.”

“Dude,  _ why _ ?” Chowder says. “You finished your book. Don’t tempt the realms of space-time. Go home.”

“I know,” he says. “I know. And I will. I’m going home Monday.”

“Why Monday?”

He knew he would have to explain this eventually, but all at once he’s kind of scared of Chowder’s judgement. “... Okay. You’re gonna laugh at me. Actually, don’t laugh.”

“Uh… okay?”

“I’m…”

He takes a long breath. Closes his eyes.

“I’m thinking about giving myself the weekend to, uh…”

_ Chill.  _ Just tell the truth.

“To see if I can get with this one guy.”

“Oh my God.” He can  _ hear _ Chowder’s jaw drop. “Will. Your diner guy.”

And the truth is out. “Uh… yup.”

“ _ Nursey _ !” Chowder says. “What do you mean by ‘get with’?”

“Well, y’know…” Derek trails off. He’s not sure exactly what he has in mind, just that he really,  _ really  _ wants to see if he can’t seduce some freckly ass before he mysteriously disappears back to New York like a gay Lone Ranger.

“Nursey! You’re thinking with the wrong head, dude.” He almost snorts at this observation by Chowder, who follows it up with, “Is he even gay?”

“Well, he’s a bachelor.”

“ _ So _ ?”

“So he’s hot! C, he’s  _ gorgeous _ .” He almost groans at the thought of it. “And he wants me to die. In, like, a sexually tense way.”

“Nursey, he  _ lives in the 1960s _ !”

“So?” Derek says. “I didn’t say I wanted to marry him and raise children; I just wanna… see what happens.”

“But  _ dude _ —”

“Look. C.” He takes a deep breath, rubs at his temple. “I haven’t had action in  _ months _ . And there’s… there’s something really appealing about giving some uptight waiter from the sixties a gay crisis.”

“Isn’t that kind of mean?”

“No. I’m not planning on  _ forcing _ him to pay attention to me.” He pauses. “I just wanna… test the waters.”

“I feel like this isn’t a good idea, Nursey,” Chowder says. “If you got caught—”

“Then I get the fuck out of town.”

“But it’s the  _ sixties _ , Nursey—”

“C.” He knows what Chowder is implying, and he’s thought about it plenty. “Trust me. If I felt critically unsafe in that town, I’d have left on day one.”

“But you weren’t trying to convert waiters on day one,” Chowder points out.

“But there’s this…  _ tension _ between me and Will.” He can feel it when he sits across from him, when he makes Will blush or roll his eyes, when Will snaps at him. He can’t stop replaying his laugh in his head. “I know I’m not imagining it.”

Chowder still sounds skeptical. “Is a one-night stand really worth the risk?”

Derek sighs. He takes a second. Stares out the window. Thinks of freckles and strong arms and amber eyes.

“I want him.”

Chowder is quiet.

“A lot.”

“Nursey, I think this is kinda a bad idea.”

“I can tell,” he mutters, then steps back, tries to shake off all the longing. He values Chowder’s opinion— more than pretty much any other person’s, actually. Chowder is his best friend in the entire world. In any decade. “But will you be mad at me if I go through with it? You can be honest.”

“Not mad,” Chowder replies. “I couldn’t be mad at you, bro. You’re my best friend. But  _ as _ your best friend, I’m telling you that if you really want to do this, you should be careful.”

“I will be.” He pauses. “And I’ll leave here next week, regardless. Promise.”

Chowder takes a second to respond. When he does, he sounds a little less frantic. “Okay, Nursey,” he says. “I hope he’s worth it.”

Derek looks into his rearview. The exit sign says one mile of backtracking to Good Haven.

He’s prepared to reverse direction and follow it.

“Me, too.”

Good Haven gave him his book. Now he has his book. He wants one more thing— or at least wants to  _ try _ .

So try, he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look... for at least the second or maybe third time in these notes....... I do not accept responsibility for Derek Nurse's dumbassery. Shit is about to go down and I am so excited. Next chapter on Friday 2/28! [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) and yell with me on Tumblr or in the comments. Thank you, as always, for reading. <3


	17. collide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised you a big event. It's time.

_ May 10th, 1961 _

_ Day 33 In Good Haven _

It begins, as many things do, with a poem.

He slips it into the jar when Will clears his dinner plate. Wrapped up with three Washingtons and a Lincoln, it’s a piece of spare paper from the notebook he’s been playing around in since finishing the other one a few days ago. The stationery is pale blue with flowers on the edges; he bought it half-price at Michaels during a bad-day-induced art supply run. People would call it girly, but Derek doesn’t care. Flowers and notebooks don’t have genders.

The poem today is longer than the fragments he’s been sneaking into Will’s tip jar. It’s a more structured piece, and though he likes the other poems he’s been putting in there, he’s never been quite so blatant. The others have been about the diner, and its ambience, and even the town; he even wrote a limerick about Kent’s wardobe the other day, just to be funny.

But before today, if he  _ was _ writing about Will, it was through abstract references, like to burning autumn leaves (his hair), or constellations of stars (his freckles), or golden hour sunlight (his eyes).

It’s never sounded quite like this.

_ he bristles when he looks at me _

_ i watch irritation find him _

_ it seems to gravitate to him _

_ magnetic _

_ it’s a crimson torrent over a face full of freckles, and _

_ for fun, _

_ i needle at him _

_ i see just how far i can go _

_ i don’t know him, _

_ not well, but _

_ i want to know him _

_ he’s a pillar of flame, _

_ a shock of light, _

_ and his eyes could give the sunrise a run for their money. _

_ when he’s confused, _

_ the bridge of his nose wrinkles, _

_ clustering the stars on his skin. _

_ crisp shirts pull over broad shoulders, _

_ hair like an unbridled bonfire, _

_ a pointy nose upturned at me, _

_ like i’m a bad stench he can’t get out in the wash, _

_ and let me be one, _

_ if it means he’ll look at me. _

_ but he’s far _

_ here in front of me, but he’s miles away, _

_ hours and days and decades _

_ separate us from what could be _

_ could i bridge the space between us? _

_ could i count those stars on his skin, _

_ look closer into golden eyes, _

_ let the firestorm wash over me? _

_ could i know him? because god, _

_ god, do i want to know him. _

_ he is all i want to know. _

So, obviously, it’s a bad idea.

But once the blue paper is through the top of the tip jar, there’s no turning back.

Will is on the closing shift today, and he’s made a habit of being the last customer to leave. He even outlasts the guy from the back— River, French braid man— who leaves the kitchen after they send off the last patron.

“Night, Will,” he hears him call, tossing a leather jacket over his shoulder.

Will looks exhausted, but he waves in his coworker’s direction. “Have a good one, Riv.”

With River gone, they’re the only two people in the diner. He knows it’s creeping close to closing time, and the plan is to stick around long enough for him to discover the poem in the jar.

And, like, whatever. He doesn’t even have an anxiety attack about it like he did the first time he put a poem in here. It’s shoot your shot 1.9k61. This will go one of two ways— either Will is receptive to his advances and he finally gets a taste of that scowling mouth, or Will isn’t, and he goes home.

Either way, no harm, no foul. In about forty-eight hours, he’ll be sitting in his apartment, typing up his manuscript and getting ready to send it to Jayda.

In the meantime, he pretends to be writing. Or, well, no. He  _ is _ writing. He’s just not writing anything that has to do with his book, and he’s fine with that. Right now, he’s wrapping lines of poetry around a little sketch of his coffee cup and saucer, which were here for most of the day before Will took and cleaned them about thirty minutes ago. The poem has nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with the man who poured it.

All at once, Will clears his throat. Derek glances up to find him standing right across the bar, arms folded. “We, uh,” he says, then stumbles over his words, which is cute as fuck, actually. “We’re closing. I’m closing. In five minutes.”

He tosses his hair a little and nods. “Yeah, I’ve been watching the time.” With a grin, he pauses. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

Will lingers for a second, like he’s trying to decide if he should respond, then uncrosses his arms and walks away. Derek swears he hears him let out the smallest sigh. His exasperation with him is so routine that it’s almost endearing.

For the next five minutes, the dining room is quiet. The jukebox is still going, like always— Derek is pretty sure it’s Elvis playing right now, a slow, old love song he recognizes vaguely. The kitchen behind the window is dark, and Will is bustling around like usual, even though it doesn’t seem like there’s all that much left to do. The artificial light casts shadows over the empty space, and outside the front windows, the world is all street lamps and the occasional passing car.

Good Haven goes to sleep early.

Derek spins halfway around in his stool, pausing at the end of his coffee poem. “Hey, Will.”

He’s cleaning the counter where Kent usually stands, but glances in Derek’s direction at this, so he knows he heard him. The thing is he doesn’t actually respond. Derek tries again. “Will?”

They meet eyes across the room, and Will finally says, “Yes?”

“Do you always have to do this close by yourself?”

Will’s brows pinch, and that wrinkle appears. He looks down at himself for a second, from the rag in his hand to his apron, and says, “Closing by myself isn’t unusual. It’s usually empty anyway.”

Derek grins a little. He’s not subtle, but then again, he’s Will. He’s never subtle. “I feel like you want me to leave.”

Will doesn’t respond. He’s still sort of looking his way, but he’s moving his rag between his hands; he looks half spaced-out. Derek is about to ask him if he’s okay when he seems to snap back to life, and he wipes off the cash register. “Sorry?” he says. “Could you repeat that?”

“I said, I feel like you want me to leave.”

Even in the unideal lighting, Derek can see Will’s cheeks flush just a little. Whether he’s angry or embarrassed, he doesn’t care. Will looks good when he blushes. “I didn’t say that.”

“Okay.” Derek shrugs and returns to his journal, flipping over to a new page. “I’ll stay, then.” He puts his pencil to the page. “Suit yourself, big Dexy.”

Will props himself against the cash register and sighs. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Oh _ o _ .” He tries not to make it too obvious that Will’s irritation is kind of turning him on. “Sir, yes sir.”

He lets Will clean in silence for approximately the next two minutes, filling the blank notebook page with a list of orange-colored words.

_ tangerine _

_ cider _

_ apricot _

_ ginger _

~~_ these are all foods, derek, get some variety _ ~~

_ amber _

_ ember _

~~_ fire???? _ ~~

_ blaze _

_ inferno _

~~_ sunspot _ ~~

~~_ tangerine _ ~~

_ wait, i already got that one _

_ pumpkin _

_ bronze _

Okay, whatever. This is not productive. When is he going to open the tip jar? He’s cleaning the sink behind the bar now. “This place does wonders for my creative process,” Derek tells him, like he cares. “I’ve written, like—” He flips through the blue flowered pages to check. “Like, twenty random pages today.”

“That’s wonderful,” Will deadpans.

“I’m serious!” He swings his legs under the counter. “It’s a huge improvement for me. I’m telling you, Dexy. Annie’s Diner is a magical place.”

Will lets off a noise that may be a snort. “Magical?”

He points his pencil at him. “Like a Goddamn Disney movie.” Will goes back to cleaning. He spins an entire circle in the stool before adding, “Wait… do you even have Disney movies yet?”

“Yes,” Will mutters, sighing again. “We do.”

“Well, the modern ones are way better,” he says. “Right now it’s all white people shit.”

Will gives him a look. “I’m white people.”

Derek fully chuckles. He can’t help it. “Yes, you are.”

He smirks down at his notebook when he feels Will’s confused-slash-maybe-offended eyes on him. He can figure that one out on his own time.

He draws the Big Dipper in the margins of his list of orange words. When Will speaks again, it’s to tell him, “Well… it’s three past nine.”

Derek eyes his watch. Will is right. “Huh,” he mumbles. “That came up on me fast.”

He closes his notebook, at least, but sits in his stool while he watches Will go over and flip the sign by the door to  _ CLOSED _ . He flips a few light switches to turn off the main lights, then crosses to the jukebox and hits a button to kill the music. Goodnight, Elvis. Goodnight, romantic ambience. Goodnight, perpetually irritable barkeep…

Okay, well. Maybe not yet.

He slides his notebook into his bag and eyes the tip jar. Will still has yet to empty it. He’s nearly jumping out of his skin waiting for that moment to come.

He just wants Will to find his poem and put him out of his misery.

Maybe he should wait. Maybe he should go out to his car, and then Will will come running and confess his attraction to him. Or maybe he should ask him if he got any tips. He wouldn’t leave it full overnight, would he? Or maybe he should—

His thought process is interrupted by Will walking back around the bar. He unties his apron, tosses it into a bin, and grabs the tip jar off the counter.

Oh my God.  _ Oh my God.  _ It’s happening. Okay, don’t freak out, Derek; don’t freak out.

He tries to be subtle as Will pours it onto the counter. It’s mostly spare change, and a couple of ones, and then— oh,  _ there it is _ — Derek’s poem.

Will unfolds the paper, with a knowing expression like he already knows what this is going to be. Joke’s on him. The tip jar poetry is just getting gayer.

Will reads. Derek watches. Several things happen.

First, Will wrinkles his brows again. The exact little dip above his nose that Derek wrote into the poem appears. Derek tries not to stare. It’s a difficult endeavor, as it turns out.

Second, Derek’s heart starts thumping out of his chest. He feels like he’s on the playground in grade school, waiting for his crush to pass back his  _ do you like me __ yes __ no __ maybe  _ note.

Third, Will’s face steadily reddens. Derek is going to  _ lose his mind _ .

Fourth, Derek starts not being able to contain his smile.

And fifth, the red reaches Will’s ears. He puts the poem down and sees Derek watching him. They lock eyes. He looks flustered and confused and maybe even kind of  _ pissed _ .

Derek can’t stop grinning. It’s hot.

“What’s so funny?”

“Huh?” Derek tries to drop the smile. It’s only minimally effective, because he’s going to spontaneously combust in about two seconds if Will doesn’t—

“What is this supposed to be?” Will brandishes the poem. “And I  _ know _ you put it in my jar, so don’t lie.”

Derek looks at the page, then back to Will’s thoroughly flustered face. His  _ ears _ . God. He settles his cheek into his hand and remarks, “It’s a poem.”

“A poem about me,” Will replies, and when Derek says nothing, he continues, his tone alone an accusation of malice. “Why are you writing about me?”

Derek maintains his chill. It’s his specialty. “Well, when the muse strikes—”

“Well, that’s just  _ really _ funny.” Will bristles, head to toe; his words feel meant as daggers. “That’s so funny.  _ Thank _ you. Seriously.” Will rolls his eyes, but since he’s still blushing so hard, it’s hard for him to look like he doesn’t care. “Tell you what— why don’t you find someone else to pick on, huh?”

Derek squints. “Pick on?”

But Will is still jabbing. “You think you’re so  _ clever _ , waltzing in here with no responsibilities; it must be  _ nice _ not to have any responsibilities except mocking the staff of a restaurant you don’t even—”

“You think I’m mocking you?” he cuts in.

“Well, I sure as hell know it’s not  _ sincere _ ,” Will hisses, “and for the record, I  _ don’t  _ appreciate it. So why don’t you—”

“You think I’m…” Derek sits up straight and stares right at him. Will still looks like he wants to punch him in the face, but maybe this anger is severely misguided, because, “...  _ mocking  _ you?”

“Yes, I think you’re mocking me!” It’s a little vocal explosion, like he’s angry that he has to explain something that seems so obvious. “Do you take me for an idiot?”

Oh,  _ Will.  _ “Of course not—”

“Laughing while I read your stupid tip poems.” Will slams his hand on the bar and crumples up the blue page. He seethes with rage, clenching a fist, and looks head-on at Derek. “Do you think I don’t  _ know _ I’m funny-looking?”

For a second, all Derek can do is look back at him. All he ever did was romanticize the fire, and now Will is burning up right in front of him.  _ Funny-looking.  _ Will thinks it’s all a joke. He thinks he’s using him for a laugh.

God.  _ Fuck.  _ This wasn’t supposed to go this way. “Will… fuck, I’m so sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t mocking you.” Will’s tension doesn’t let up, but the look in his eyes changes, just a little. “I would  _ never _ mock you. Especially not like that. I promise you.”

Will blinks. He unclenches his fist, looks down at the poem in it, and looks back at Derek. Derek wishes,  _ so fucking badly _ , that he could tell what he’s thinking, but for all his anger, Will is a hard man to read. It’s like he has three modes— indifferent, annoyed, and flat-out pissed.

But the day he  _ laughed _ — where’s that Will?

Silence hangs between them, separated by mere feet across the bar. All at once, he realizes his heart is pounding again.

_ This was a bad idea, Derek. This was a really bad idea. _

“Look,” Will says finally, his voice a little lower, closing his hand around the paper again. “I don’t— I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, or why you’ve decided to station yourself in my town for your entertainment.” The way he says  _ where you come from _ sounds so contemptuous that Derek almost wants to defend himself, but he lets him keep talking. “I’ve never been to New York, and I’ve certainly never been to the future, and I have no intention of visiting either,” he says. “But whatever it’s like where you come from, it— it isn’t— it isn’t like that here. Okay?”

Derek furrows his brow. Does he mean what he think he means?

He has to, right?

“It isn’t like that here,” Will repeats, “and whatever you’re trying to do, I’m not in the business of figuring out what it means or why it involves me.”

“What do you mean by—”

“Here.” He sets his hand down, forcefully, in front of Derek, and leaves the crumpled poem there. “Take your stupid poem.”

Derek stares at the paper, then at Will. He can feel the tension in the air between him, but it’s charged differently than it usually is. Will is still the color of a cherry, and his heart is still pounding, and—

_ I’m not in the business of figuring out what it means. _

“And while you’re at it, why don’t you get on?” Will adds, nodding to the door. “We’re closed.”

Oh, so he’s being thrown out now? “Yo—  _ chill _ , Dexy—”

“Don’t tell me to chill!” Will snaps, and now he seems just fully pissed again, which is more of a turn-on than it has business being. “And don’t call me that.”

Derek can’t help it. He grins a little. Will is flustered and staring at him and so fucking gorgeous. “Sorry.”

“And you best wipe that stupid smirk off your face,” Will adds, 

“Oh?” Derek leans forward on the bar. Okay. One last shot and he’ll quit. He hopes he can bury it in the back of the net.

His smirk ever the wider, he tips his body towards him. “Why don’t you come over here and make me?”

What happens next is fast.

Will bristles, then lunges. Goes to grab him by the shirt.

Derek falls forward into him, and their lips collide.

The first thing that happens is that Will does not pull away. The second thing that happens is Derek’s brain sounding off a goal horn. He squeezes his eyes shut. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit it’s happening. It’s  _ happening _ —

The kiss is hard and hot and fucking  _ amazing _ , and it feels like Will is actually maybe  _ kissing him back _ , and he’s gearing up to maybe take Will’s face in his hands or something when—

Will jerks. He pulls away and stumbles backwards, with a sharp inhale like he has to catch his breath. Derek opens his eyes to flash a mighty grin at him, to go in for a second kiss.

But when he meets Will’s eyes, his stomach drops.

Will looks  _ mortified _ .

His face is still red, sure, but something like panic swims in his eyes, and he stares at Derek not with anger but with embarrassed disbelief. Derek feels a lurch of nausea. He scrambles to speak, to fix this— “I’m sorry.” Will blinks, says nothing. “I—”

Then he says, “Get out of my diner.”

“Will.”  _ Fuck.  _ “I’m sorry. I—”

“ _ Go _ ,” Will says, more forcefully, taking a step backwards.

“Okay.”  _ Jesus Derek you stupid fucking idiot.  _ “Okay. I’ll— I’ll leave. I’m sorry.” He grabs for his bag, stumbles over his barstool. Will doesn’t so much as crack a smile. “I’m sorry, Will,” he repeats, but Will is so past reaching now that he knows he can’t stay. He pulls his bag strap over his shoulder, turns on his heel, and runs to the front door.

The parking lot is dark and empty, save his car and the red truck that must be Will’s parked in the back. He doesn’t look back to see what Will is doing in the dining room. He gets to his car, tears the door open, and slams his forehead on the steering wheel.

_ You stupid fucking idiot oh God you fucking idiot.  _ He’s so fucking  _ stupid _ ; God, Chowder was so right; this was a  _ shit _ idea; what the fuck did he think he was doing? In what world was this a good idea? Chowder was  _ right _ ; he had  _ no idea _ if Will was even interested, and oh, God—

He can still feel him on his lips, still see the awful look on his face when he pulled away.  _ God _ . That was the worst idea he’s ever had. And he has had a  _ lot _ of really bad ideas.

He has to get out of here. Out of Good Haven. He promised Chowder he would, and he made an ass of himself to Will, and there’s nothing left for him here now.

He squeezes his eyes shut against the wheel. Jesus. Fuck. Did that actually just happen.

He is the biggest dumbass in any century.

It is time to get back to his own.

*

Will is shaking.

His body is burning, and he’s hunching over the bar, and he runs his hands through his hair, and he’s shaking. He can’t stop. He reels with the impact of Derek’s kiss, begs himself to stabilize.  _ Calm down. Calm down, Will. You have to calm down. _

But he’s shaking and he can’t stop and he watches Derek’s taillights skid out of the parking lot and he kissed him, he kissed him—

Derek kissed him.

Oh  _ God _ . He was flirting. This whole time, he was flirting. Or worse, he  _ found out  _ about him somehow, and this whole thing is meant to expose him—

But oh, God, that kiss; Will has never been kissed like that before; he’s seldom ever been kissed at all.

And the poem— the  _ poem _ , oh, God, it’s still there; it’s still on the bar; he left it. He reaches for it before he can think any better of it, uncrumples it, smooths the wrinkled blue page in his trembling hands.

_ could i bridge the space between us? _

God.  _ Shit.  _ Fuck.

_ could i know him? because god, _

_ god, do i want to know him. _

_ he is all i want to know. _

He can still feel him on his mouth.

God.  _ God. _ This isn’t right. Men who look like Derek don’t think about Will like that.

Oh, who is he kidding. He’s  _ never _ met a man as beautiful as Derek, as untouchable. Derek is not supposed to want him. No one is supposed to want him.

_ He is all I want to know. _

God.  _ Fuck.  _ And he told him to get out— he  _ panicked _ and told him to go—

_ Isn’t that what you wanted? _

Will touches a finger to his lips. He’s still shaking.

_ I want to know him. _

Oh God.

He is so  _ fucked _ .

He needs a drink.

*

_ when we collided _

~~_ i didn’t mean for it to _ ~~

~~_ i didn’t want _ ~~

_ i crashed into you _

_ and i thought _

_ you would fall _

_ back into me _

_ but _

_ you pushed _

_ where i pulled _

~~_ and now i’m _ ~~

_ where do i go from here? _

~~_ because _ ~~

~~_ it’s just _ ~~

_ the thing is, _

_ i guess i didn’t know what i was expecting, _

_ until the opposite happened _

_ and now? _

_ now you linger on my mouth _

_ and when i close my eyes, _

_ i see your flushing skin _

_ and the fire i couldn’t put out _

_ inside of you, _

_ inside of me. _

_ you gave me your flame _

_ and i played with  _ ~~_ fire _ ~~ _ it _

_ i leaned in _

_ embraced it _

_ like it didn’t hurt at all _

~~_ but now you’re gone _ ~~

~~_ and i’m still burning _ ~~

_ but a fire is hard to put out when _

_ it’s already burning in me _

*

_ May 11th, 1961 _

_ Day 34 In Good Haven _

Derek is a no-show at Annie’s the next day.

Not that Will  _ expected _ him to show up after the disaster of the night before. Once he’s gotten over his own personal panic attack, or at least beat it down to the extent that it can be, with the help of the whiskey in his cabinet, there’s nothing left for him to do but go into work, so that’s what he does. The fact that Derek is gone is almost cause for relief.

At first.

The longer the shift goes on, and the clearer it becomes that he’s not coming, Will dissolves right back into the crisis mode of last night. His mind did not stop reeling from the moment Derek’s lips touched his to the blissful point at which, sometime past midnight, he finally got to sleep in an alcohol-induced haze. It was a fitful rest, full of dreams of that kiss, but it was better than nothing.

And… apparently, this morning, it’s right back to the drawing board.

Where is he? Is he still in town? He probably left. He should leave. Will would leave, if it were him.

But God, what if he’s  _ not _ gone? What if he’s hiding out at Eric’s, wondering what Will is thinking, reeling over the kiss the same way Will is?

The one thing that has not yet occurred to Will, that dawns on him this morning, is that maybe Derek hasn’t gone back to his own time because something  _ else _ is keeping him here, something not as trivial as writing a book.

Will couldn’t have been the something else… could he have?

Oh  _ God _ . His brain hurts. He can’t stop going over last night. He must be acting unusual, because Kenny sidles up next to him at the rack by the kitchen while he’s sorting through order slips and waiting for Riv to put the last part of a big family’s breakfast order up.

“Hey, Dexy,” Kenny murmurs.

Will sticks his latest order slip up in the queue. “Hi.”

Kent lowers his voice. “You okay?”

_ Shit.  _ He’s onto him. “Yup.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yup.” River puts the last order up, but it’s closer to Kent than to himself, so he asks, “Can you pass me that?”

Kent slides it across the rack. Will knows he’s giving him a look, but he doesn’t acknowledge him. He just takes the plate, puts it on his tray, and gets back to work.

It’s business as usual.

*

_ you brought yourself _

_ into this fire _

_ you asked to be burned _

_now_

_ you can walk yourself out _

*

_ May 12th, 1961 _

_ Day 35 In Good Haven _

Derek is leaving.

He’s just about finished packing up the yellow room at Eric’s. He’s turned the thing into something of a dorm room over the past month— clothes in the dresser, self-care supplies in the bathroom, his notebooks and writing stuff all over the desk. Now, he packs it all into his bag.

He gave himself the day yesterday to wallow, to write really bad poetry, to savor Eric’s baking one last time. Over a second slice of key lime pie after dinner, he made his final decision. He would leave. It was the only thing left to do.

Because the thing is, he has majorly fucked up. The more he thinks about the kiss, the more he realizes that it was honestly one of his top ten dumbass decisions of all time. The solution to pining, as it turns out, is  _ not _ just to kiss the guy because he’s cute when he’s mad at you.

You would think that Derek would know this information. But impulse took over, and he kissed him, and now, well…

Now he’s going home.

It’s okay. He said he was going to anyway. There’s nothing left to do.

“You have a safe trip home,” Eric says, wrapping him in a hug at the bottom of the stairs. “And send me along that book when you’re all famous and published!”

“I will, Eric,” he lies, because he has to. He wonders vaguely if, in his own time, Eric is still here, old as dirt, running the inn by himself. He wouldn’t doubt it.

He wonders where Will is.

“And thank you,” he adds. “For your hospitality. You’ve been the best.”

“Oh, anytime, honey,” Eric replies, as he lets go of him. “If you’re ever up this way again, you know where to find me.”

“Of course.” Derek grins down at him. “I will.”

He highly,  _ highly _ doubts he’ll ever be back up this way again.

*

The second time Kent confronts Will, it’s on his morning break.

He’s in the back locker room, having a glass of water, minding his own business, when Kent walks in. He’s a man on a mission, and he walks right up to him. “Dexy. What gives?”

He cocks an eyebrow in lieu of an actual response.

Kent sounds accusatory. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Kenny.”

“That’s bull,” Kent says. “Something happened. You think I’m dumb?”

“I’m  _ fine _ , Kenny.”

“Something happened with Derek,” Kent says, “because he’s not here, and he wasn’t here yesterday, and you’re acting all down.”

“Oh, buzz off, Kenny.” Will scowls over the turn of his stomach. “It’s my break, not yours.”

Kent rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Will. Can’t hide it forever.” But he leaves anyway.

*

About two hours after the confrontation on his break, most of which have been full of Will avoiding Kent and Kent passive-aggressively eyeing him across the dining room, Kent tries again.

“Dexy.”

He’s walking in the hallway between the kitchen and the back dining area. Kent is perched by the bathroom door.

“Will.”

Will keeps walking toward the kitchen. He pretends not to hear him.

And then— “William Poindexter get your ass over here.”

He lets out a groan and looks to him. Almost fuming, Kent opens the bathroom door halfway and tilts his head in its direction. “In here,” he whispers. “Now.”

“I am  _ not _ going in the bathroom with you,” Will replies.

Kent stalks over to him, grabs his arm with both hands, and physically drags him into the bathroom. Will wrestles against his grip, but when Kent slams and locks the door, he’s lost the fight. It’s a tiny thing, one stall, and though this isn’t the first time they’ve had a quick and vaguely angry conversation in here, it definitely must look weird to anyone who notices. Thankfully, the only people who can see the staff bathroom are the actual staff, and he’s pretty sure no one has ever caught Kenny dragging him in here.

It’s a tight squeeze. Kent folds his arms and leans sideways against the door. All he says is, “Spill.”

Will takes a second. Inhales.

It’s no use. Kenny can see right through him. He squeezes his eyes shut. “Derek kissed me.”

Kent half-gasps and half-chokes. “ _ What _ ?”

“I know—”

“When?”

He opens his eyes to see Kent’s expression, but other than utter shock, it’s mostly unreadable. “Wednesday night.”

“Did you want it?” Kent asks.

“ _ Yes— _ ” Will winces at himself, at the terrifying truth. Kent’s entire face lights up, so he amends. “I did, but— I panicked—”

All the light leaves Kent’s eyes. “Oh, no.”

“And now he’s gone,” Will continues, “and I think he probably left town, but—”

“Oh, Will.”

He’s reeling again, the way he was just after the kiss; everything rushes back all at once. “And he wrote me this poem—”

“Hold on, back up,” Kent says. “He just kissed you and left?”

“No, he kissed me and I told him to get out because I panicked—”

“Oh,  _ Dexy _ .”

“I  _ know _ , Kenny; I know—”

“Well, you have to do something—”

“Like what? Kenny, he’s  _ from the future _ —”

“But he’s here, and he  _ kissed _ you—”

“I know—” Will buries his face in his hands, lets off a sharp exhale. “I know, and I can’t stop thinking about it—”

“Okay. Hey. Hold on.” Kent’s hand is on his shoulder. He lets his face out of his hands to look back up at him. He’s shaking again. Kent is ever-steady, and gentle, as he takes his hand away. “How’d it happen?”

“We were fighting,” Will starts. “He wrote me a poem, and I got mad, because, aw, Kenny, I— I thought he was mocking me— like he  _ knew _ about me somehow— but then he  _ kissed _ me—”

“So he  _ is _ like us,” Kent whispers.

Will lets out a groan, and he nods at hearing this out loud. “Well, he sure made it seem like he is.”

“Was it a good kiss?”

Will’s going to kill him. “That’s not  _ relevant _ , Kenny.”

Kent folds his arms and raises both eyebrows. Even though he says nothing, Will knows what the expression means.  _ You didn’t answer my question. _

“Yes, okay?” he blurts. “Yes, it was a good kiss. And now I— I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m— Kenny—” He catches himself, tries to stop reeling. “No man has ever looked at me that way before.”

“I can’t believe it,” Kent says. He’s almost grinning. “And you said you didn’t even like him.”

“Oh,  _ cut the gas _ , Kenny—”

“Hey… hey.” Kent’s hand finds his shoulder again. “Dexy. It’s okay. I’m sorry. That wasn’t necessary.”

Will looks at him for a second. He can’t entirely read Kent’s expression— it’s somewhere between bewildered and fascinated and uncertain, all at once.

When Will breaks the quiet between them, it’s to ask, in a voice that comes out maybe a little desperate, “What am I going to do?”

Kent takes a second to think about this. Then he says, “Well.” And pauses.

“You oughta do  _ something _ .”

And that’s when Will starts to plan.

*

Derek has been driving for an hour and a half.

He’s not lost. He knows he’s going the right way, because he’s following the signs on the interstate to go south, and if he drives on this road long enough, it  _ will _ eventually lead him back to New York. He’s still in Maine, but he should start hitting state lines sooner or later. It’s broad daylight, and there’s been no sign of a freak storm like the one that brought him to Good Haven.

But the problem is… his phone hasn’t turned on yet.

He figures it’s just waiting for the right moment. He has the ringer button flicked on, and it’s sitting face-up in the cup holder, so he’ll be able to tell the moment it comes to life. From there, he’ll call Chowder and tell him he’s on his way home, then he’ll queue up one of his Spotify playlists (he’s sorely missed his modern music) and use it to de-stress the whole way home.

He’s just waiting on his phone.

He’s not freaking out. He’s okay. He’s totally fine. He knows that leaving Good Haven means leaving the past, and since he left Good Haven an entire hour ago, he should be well back into his own time by now. He must be.

Maybe his phone just needs to be charged. He plugs it into his car USB and waits for the little apple to appear, but nothing happens.

He puts a little more gas on. The forest seems to enclose the highway on all sides, with no way out.

This goes on for some time. When his phone hasn’t turned on after what must be at least another fifteen minutes of driving, he passes a sign that says  _ Rest Area 2 Miles.  _ The rest area, when it comes into view, is a modest-sized brown building with a few cars and bigger trucks parked around it. He signals to get off and pulls into the lot in front of the building.

Derek’s stomach sinks. All of these cars look way too retro for his liking.

A few truck drivers are smoking outside, and there’s a booth full of pamphlets that says  _ INFORMATION  _ at the top. Inside, a small store sells cigarettes, food, and various first aid items.

“Can I help you?” asks the clerk.

“Sorry, yeah. I—” Derek surveys the scene. A part of him already knows the answer to what he’s about to ask, and he’s feeling kind of ill. “What’s the date today?”

The clerk glances at a calendar behind his desk. “Twelfth of May,” he replies. “All day.”

_ Fuck. _

He has to keep driving.

But another entire half hour of driving yields no result from his phone nor the way everything looks far too old. He’s dissolving into a tangible panic, and he pulls over to the side of the highway to try and get it under control. He’s still in the past. His phone would have turned on if he weren’t. And all the other times he’s done this, his phone has turned on as  _ soon _ as he left Good Haven—

He drives for another thirty minutes. Nothing. Nothing but old-timey street signs and vintage cars and the silence of his phone not turning on.

He should’ve traveled back  _ hours _ ago.

Oh God. He’s stuck here, isn’t he? He’s stuck in the past— he’s stuck in 1961;  _ fuck _ , oh, God—

Okay. Okay, breathe. Breathe and focus on that.

But stuck here, he’s stuck here; he’s been driving for two and a half hours and he’s still stuck here— he should’ve been gone as  _ soon as he left Good Haven _ ; why is it not  _ working _ —

A car moves into the fast lane to pass him, and he realizes he’s been doing 40 when the speed limit is 60. A closer look at the person who passed him makes his stomach lurch— it’s a state trooper. The cop car is old, but there’s no mistaking the writing on its doors.

_ Please don’t come back please don’t come back. _

_ God _ he’s so fucking  _ stupid _ , out here in the middle of nowhere, in nineteen fucking sixty-one— this isn’t safe.  _ Fuck.  _ This isn’t safe at all. He watches the cop car fade on the freeway’s horizon, then signals to take the next exit.

He’s stuck here. There’s only one place to go, and as much as he doesn’t want to, he’d rather be there than out here, by himself, in a world he isn’t even  _ remotely _ prepared to face as the person he is.

He’s stuck. He’s fucking stuck and he’s a fucking idiot and Will was  _ right _ ; he shouldn’t have messed around with time travel— and oh, God,  _ Will— _

He’s stuck and he’s out of options.

He has to go back to Good Haven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, or yell with me in the comments! Chapter 18 is coming soon. Thank you very much for reading. <3


	18. be mine tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry I left you all screaming at the end of chapter 17. Let me atone for my sins. The chapter title is from Elvis’ “It’s Now Or Never”, which I wrote a good chunk of this chapter to.

_ May 13th, 1961 _

_ Day 36 In Good Haven _

It’s like déjà vu.

He tells Eric he started having car troubles on the way home, and that he had to backtrack. Eric puts him up in the yellow room again. In an act of desperation, he uses the rotary phone in his room to try and call Chowder’s 2021 number, but gets an operator who asks if he’s sure he wants to make a long-distance call to San Francisco. He says no and hangs up, lest he skyrocket Eric’s telephone bill into unholy territory.

So he flops onto the bed and sleeps, and when he wakes up it’s halfway through the day on Saturday.

And he’s  _ still here _ . He’s still fucking here. He can’t get home. How is he going to get home?

Then it dawns on him.

This must have something to do with  _ Will _ .

Everything was fine until he kissed him. Then he got stuck here. It’s Will. He’s the time-stopping piece of the puzzle. From the beginning, he’s been the only one who knew about the time travel, so the fact that he did something to completely fuck up their dynamic has messed with the time equilibrium. Like the time gods are pissed at him for kissing him. Or something.

Okay. It  _ was _ impulsive. But it was a result of a misread of the situation. And all of that wasn’t going to matter at all until he got  _ stuck in Good Haven _ —

So now what does he do?

Does he…  _ go _ to Will?

_ Hey, dude, sorry I kissed you while we were fighting; the truth is, I was into it, but it turns out you weren’t, obviously, and we definitely weren’t on the same page in terms of what kind of tension there was between us, but, anyway, uh, I think by kissing you I accidentally ripped apart the fabric of space-time, so can you help me figure out how to put it back together? _

_ Please? _

He loves himself (mostly), but he can be such a dumb-ass bitch sometimes.

It takes him all of Saturday to figure out a plan, amidst helping Eric make a blackberry cobbler and sketching random fruit in his blue flower notebook. When the plan comes, it’s poorly pieced together, but it’s something— he has to talk to Will, but first he has to figure out if Will is willing to talk to him. And to do that, he should go to Kent, who probably knows most of the situation if he’s really Will’s best friend. So first thing tomorrow, on Will’s day off, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll make his way to Annie’s, find Kent, and feel out the situation.

And if it turns out Will  _ doesn’t _ want to talk to him, then… well, then he’ll consider other options. Like moving to Harlem. And changing his identity. And meeting Malcolm X.

He needs to pick a fake name.

After cobbler time but before dinner, he finds himself sketching at the desk in the yellow room, sharpening his pencil with a literal razor, like maybe honing in on the art will quell the anxiety rising steadily in his brain.

Will will help him, right? He’ll help him.

He takes a long breath, lets it out through his mouth, repeats this procedure a few times before leaning back in the desk chair and pressing his knuckles under his cheekbones. This town, all of a sudden, feels suffocatingly small.

And then, at the window, there’s a sound.

_ Clack. _

He thinks, at first, that he’s imagined it. That or a rogue squirrel is attacking his room from the outside. The window itself is closed, because he hasn’t had it open since before he tried to leave here. He squints at it suspiciously, and waits.

_ Clack. _

There it is again.

Something is hitting his window.

He gets out of his desk chair and pads over to the window. It faces Eric’s backyard, which is mostly green grass with a few flowering shrubs that flank the sides of the building. The sun is sinking in the sky, but not setting yet by a longshot. There are no treacherous squirrels in sight.

What was that noise, then?

_ Clack _ .

_ Holy shit!  _ Derek jumps backwards. They’re  _ rocks _ . Someone is trying to hit his window with  _ rocks _ .

Okay, fine, pebbles. He doesn’t think they’re meant to break the glass— they seem like they’re meant to get his attention, but also, is this a nineties teen movie, and double also, whomst the fuck?

He pulls his window open and looks around the yard, and he’s about ready to chalk it up to an impending alien abduction (which would not even be the weirdest thing to happen to him in the past month) when he spots the head of ginger hair in Eric’s rhododendron.

His stomach does, like, three somersaults, and he doubles backwards. “ _ Will _ ?”

“ _ Shhhh _ —” Will’s head pops fully out of the bush. Holy shit, it  _ is _ him— all of him, hiding in a bush in the backyard throwing rocks at Derek’s window, and, uh, what in the fresh hell is going on right now? “Derek,  _ shhhh _ ; be quiet—”

Derek ducks his head in the window and whispers down at him. “What are you doing here?”

Will shushes him again. He flails his arms, like an angry cartoon character. “ _ Shhh _ !”

He can’t help it— he laughs at the sight, then lowers his voice to ask, “Why are you hiding in a bush?”

“It’s… It’s complicated.” Will sighs. He steps out of the rhododendron, and  _ whoa _ . Uh, um. He’s… dressed up? He’s  _ really _ dressed up. “But— I’m here to apologize.”

Derek tries not to gape at him. He’s in slacks and a blue button-down with its sleeves rolled up, plus suspenders and a bow tie. Where is he going? Why is he  _ standing outside Derek’s window _ ? He’s dumbfoundedly silent for at least three seconds too long before he even processes Will’s words. “Apologize?”

“For the other night,” Will says, still basically whispering, and he plucks a pink flower out of one of his suspenders. This is a  _ sight _ . Derek nearly swoons. “I… I was rude to you,” Will says, and it takes Derek exactly that long to realize that this is  _ Will _ standing outside his window and he’s  _ talking about the other night _ and the last time Derek saw him he was telling him to get out of his diner and  _ oh my Goooddddddd what is happening. _

“And I didn’t handle things well,” Will says, “and I’m sorry I accused you of mocking me when you weren’t—”

“I wasn’t,” Derek blurts, and he knows he’s interrupted his apology speech, but he’d interrupt him a hundred times if it meant he could make clear to him that what happened the other night was never meant to be mockery.

“I know,” Will says, and there’s sincerity in his eyes as he looks up at him. “And— I’m sorry I’ve been so short with you; I… I’m sorry I threw you out.” He pauses, takes a long breath, and glances from side to side like he’s worried about being seen. “I didn’t react well to what happened, and I’ve missed you at work.”

This seems to be the end of his speech. Derek registers, vaguely, that his whole freckly face is a little pink, the color of the rhododendron flowers— one of which is still stuck in his hair. He knows he’s just been apologized to, but Derek, because he is a useless human being, asks the first question that comes to mind, that has nothing to do with what Will has just said. “Why are you all dressed up?”

Will sighs. He pauses, then his gaze darts around again. When he speaks, it’s in a low voice, with his face reddening still. “Because… Derek… look.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I like you.”

Derek’s stomach does acrobatics again. Did he hear him right? He thinks he did.

“But we should talk about it,” Will adds, kind of hastily. “Because I think things are different in your, ah, your time, and I—”

He can’t stop staring at the bow tie. It’s tan, the same color as his pants. His voice echoes in his ears.  _ I like you.  _ “But why are you dressed up?”

“Because if you’ll have me— and  _ only _ if you’ll have me,” he says, “I’m here to take you on a date.”

Derek takes a second.

Processes this.

Surveys the outfit.

Does not freak out.

“A date?” he says, smiling gently, treading carefully. “You and me?”

“You and me,” Will replies with a nod that’s almost businesslike, and Derek can’t help it; he smiles wider. “But only if you want to,” he says. “I… I have food, in my truck. Dinner. Like a picnic.”

“A picnic?” Derek echoes, and holy  _ shit _ , is he excited right now.  _ Only if you want to _ , Will said, but Derek isn’t sure he’s ever wanted to do anything more. “Say no more, Poindexter. I’m coming down there.”

“What?” Will smiles— just the corner of his mouth, and it’s a sight that intensifies Derek’s stomach-butterflies. “Really?”

“Really,” Derek replies. His heart is kind of thumping out of his chest. Is this real life? Maybe he fell asleep at the desk, and he’s going to wake up all sorry and sad artist-y again. But for now, he’ll tempt the fates. “I’m gonna change, though,” he tells Will. “You look great. I want to look nice, too.”

The blush blooms fully over him, and it is a  _ beautiful  _ sight. “Well, thank you.”

“I’ll come down there,” he tells him. “Five minutes, tops.”

“Okay,” Will says, and then, “but we have to be inconspicuous.” He looks over his shoulder and points toward the road that leads into the woods. “I have a red truck,” he says. “It’s on the corner just past the water tower. Can you meet me there?”

Derek nods. “I’m on it,” he says, and then he scrambles to get dressed more quickly than he thinks he’s ever done in his whole entire life.

He finds his good dark-wash jeans, then goes through three different shirt-sweater combinations before he finally decides on one he likes— a green button-up beneath a thin cream sweater. He wears the shoes that match the shirt, puts on his hat, takes off the hat, puts the hat back on, and then decides Firmly Against the hat and tosses it onto the yellow bed.

He nearly takes a spill in his rush to get down the stairs. When he stumbles to the bottom of them, unharmed and still on his own two legs, Eric is by the front desk near the front door. He flashes a smile. “Where are you headed, dressed all spiffy?”

“Just out for a walk.” It’s a bad lie, but Derek doesn’t care.

“That’s quite the outfit for a walk,” Eric remarks. “You sure you’re not stopping at the dance hall?”

He shrugs. Let Eric think he’s going dancing. “You never know who you’re gonna run into,” he says, and then, once he’s out the front door into the spring evening, he  _ books it _ to the water tower.

Red truck, indeed. It’s parked on the side of the road, tucked between patches of trees like one of those asshole cops who lurks and waits for you to go by doing ten over the speed limit so he can ticket you or worse. But this isn’t an asshole cop— it’s a beautiful, shiny pickup, with wood around its bed and big tires and William Motherfucking Poindexter leaning against the driver door in suspenders and a bow tie.

Derek must’ve hit his head on something, and this is one giant hallucination.

“Hi,” Will whispers as he approaches. All his body language is secretive, and he keeps looking around to check for cars or whatever, but unless someone is in the window at Eric’s with binoculars, there isn’t a soul in sight who could see them. “I’ll help you up.”

Derek doesn’t actually need to be helped up into the passenger’s seat, but he lets Will get the door for him on the other side of the truck anyway, because that is some  _ chivalrous romantic shit _ , and when they’re safely both in their seats, Will sighs at the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry I did that so strangely,” he says, to break the quiet. The interior of the truck is spotless, with tan leather seats that look well-loved but upkept, and an old radio system with the volume turned down. “I just…” Will meets his eyes across the console. For the first time Derek can remember, he looks sheepish, maybe even vulnerable. “I couldn’t risk being seen.”

“Don’t apologize,” Derek tells him, then he pauses for a second, smiles at him in disbelief. He’s sitting in his car. They’re  _ going on a date _ . He’s not sure he ever could have predicted this, even in all his pining, all his wondering. “So… you’re queer.”

All the softness leaves Will’s face. He reddens, but not in the bashful way, and when he speaks, he sounds offended. “Well, so are you!”

“Well,  _ yeah _ , obv—” He stops short with a realization. “Oh, shit, oh,  _ fuck _ , it’s 1961— I’m sorry, Will.” The sudden hardness makes so much more sense, and he says, “Where I come from, queer isn’t an insult. It’s more… a reclaimed term.” He scratches the back of his neck, and, thank God, Will’s adverse reaction wears off his face just a little. “The LGBT community, we’ve…” But at this, Will’s brows furrow. If anything, he’s confusing him. “Okay,” he says. “Let me try again.”

“Okay,” Will says.

“What do you call yourself?”

Will is quiet for a second, eyes on the steering wheel. He’s wringing his hands together in his lap.

“Don’t say Will Poindexter,” Derek adds.

“I wasn’t going to,” he replies. “I was just… thinking.”

Derek treads carefully. “Do you  _ have _ a word for it?”

Now Will meets his eyes. “A word for what?”

“Your sexual orientation.”

Will takes a second to even look like he’s thinking about saying anything, and Derek worries for that quiet moment that he’s gone too far— that, by being so blunt, he’s going to get himself kicked out of this beautiful old truck and wind up right back at square one. But despite his rapidly spreading blush, Will manages to take a deep breath and wring his hands. “I’m… a homosexual,” he says, and he stumbles over the sentence like he’s not sure whether he can say it at all. “I’m… I’m gay.”

“Okay,” Derek replies. He wants to give some kind of comforting gesture, rub his arm, maybe, but doesn’t— he won’t touch him, he decides, unless Will asks him to or does it first. “Thank you for helping me understand.”

“And you are, also,” Will continues, nodding at him, and it sounds like a conclusion he’s drawn.

“Well, I… I’m into guys, yeah.”

Will furrows his brows again. “Do you not use the word homosexual in 2021?”

“No, we do,” Derek replies, mentally weighing the benefits of going into this explanation right now. Then again, would he really want to go on a date with someone who didn’t understand his sexuality? The least he can do is explain. “I’m just… I’m bisexual.”

He takes a second, then asks, “Isn’t that a medical condition?”

This doesn’t sound like it’s meant as a jab; it’s more just genuine confusion. He wonders if he’s thinking of intersex. “Oh… no,” he replies. “I think you’re thinking of something else. I’m attracted to women and to other men.”

“Oh.” Will pauses. Derek wishes he knew what he was thinking, but he just nods and says, “Okay.”

“I’m guessing you’ve never heard of it before,” he tries.

“No,” Will says. “I haven’t.”

Derek lets him process for a second, and he really, really hopes that Will can understand, even in his very new knowledge of the concept. There’s nothing more frustrating in the dating world than developing feelings for someone who turns out to be biphobic.

When Will speaks again, it’s to ask, “So you’ve been with both men and women?”

He’s right in a few senses, but he asks, for clarity, “What do you mean by been with?”

“Er… seen or dated?” Will says. “Gone with?”

“Oh, yeah, I have.” Derek pauses. When he meets those amber eyes again, he’s tentative. “Are you okay with that?”

Will nods, and now he’s back to sheepish. “As long as you’re okay with the fact that I’m a homosexual.” He squeezes his eyes shut and winces, almost recoils, at his own words. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ve… I’ve never said it out loud so much before.”

“Will.” Derek flashes a smile meant for comfort. “Don’t be sorry for being who you are.”

He thinks it works, because Will softens a little. He unclenches his hands in his lap and puts his right one on the gear shift. “Do you mind if I start driving?”

“Not at all.” He leans back in his seat and watches him shift the truck into gear. It moves under his control like a well-tuned instrument, and they turn out onto the road, headed for the woods that lead downtown.

He is  _ driving in Will’s car _ .

Curiosity gets the better of him, and they’re still technically on this topic, so he asks, “Have you ever been with a man?”

Will shakes his head. He’s still blushing. “No.”

“Or… not a woman, either, I’m assuming?”

“Not really, but… I took my friend to the springtime dance in high school,” he replies. “Rosie— my neighbor, you remember?”

“Oh my  _ God _ ,” Derek half says and half laughs. “That must’ve been a  _ trip _ .”

“It was a blast,” Will says, “but she didn’t have much to do with the fun. She tried to kiss me when we were walking home, and… it wasn’t right.”

“So that’s the closest you’ve been to going out with a woman?”

“Yes, and it’s the closest I care to come.” Will lets off a sigh that sounds almost therapeutic, like he’s been waiting to say this out loud. “People ask me all the time if I’m ever getting married. I usually just tell them I’m waiting on the right girl, but… lying… it doesn’t feel right, exactly.”

“I’m sorry, Will.” Derek frowns. “That’s really awful.”

Will shakes his head, eyes on the road. “That’s life.”

The way he says it is so resigned to this fate, so compliant with the idea of perpetual solitude, of beating down who he is, that it gives Derek a knot in the stomach. This is just how Will lives— how he always has and always will.  _ That’s life _ . This is life for him and for the countless others like him, whose true selves will never see the light of day.

It’s one thing to read about it, as history well since gone by. It’s another to, well…  _ witness _ it.

There’s a brief silence between them, but it isn’t awkward, or tense, or any of the things that silence at the diner tended to be. Instead, it’s comfortable; Will looks more relaxed with the weight of his confession off his shoulders; he tugs at his bow tie to adjust it. Derek tries another question. “So what we’re doing right now is, like, the first actual time you’ve been out with somebody in your life?”

“Well,” Will says, “when you put it that way, it sounds a little embar—”

“No. Hey— Will.” He smiles at him— fully, warmly. “Don’t be embarrassed. I like it, actually.”

Will softens. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He almost kind of smirks. “It means I have to ruin everybody else for you.”

Will flushes, but he’s still sort of smiling. “The point is,” Derek continues, “I like you. And I’m, like, really fucking happy to be with you right now. Speaking of, is this your truck?”

Will nods. “It was my pa’s.”

Wait.

“He got it after the war—”

_ Wait. _

“I try to keep it in ship shape, and all—”

Wait wait wait wait. “ _Wait!!!_ Fuck—” Oh _God_ hold on, he is _very stupid_. “Will, I’m stuck here.”

“Stuck in the truck?”

“No.”  _ Fuck fuck fuck. Dumbass.  _ “Stuck  _ here _ . Fuck. Jesus. I can’t believe I didn’t lead with this. I’m stuck. In 1961.”

Will’s head whips up and over to him. “What?!”

“I tried to leave yesterday,” he says. “I was going to go home. And I— it wouldn’t let me out. I drove for two and a half hours—”

“I thought you said it was only Good Haven.”

“It  _ was _ ,” he says. “But then it wasn’t. I tried to drive home.”

“ _ Why _ did you not say this right away?” Will pumps the brakes; his words feel like borderline scolding. “Are you sure this is what you should be doing right now?”

“Look, okay—” Derek tries to calm him. “I don’t know  _ why _ it happened; I was able to get out, like, three days ago to call Chowder, and then— yesterday, I just— I  _ couldn’t _ — and I was going to come to you, but I didn’t think you’d want me around.”

“So you’re stuck here,” Will says, plainly; he doesn’t sound or look  _ mad _ but definitely looks like this was not on his list of possibilities.

“I— yeah.” Saying it out loud makes him realize just how ridiculous and crazy it is. “I think so.”

For his part, Will keeps driving, but he doesn’t let up on him. “How are you so calm right now?”

_ If you only knew.  _ That’s the nice thing about the whole ‘chill’ thing. Everyone is always like, wow, Derek, you’re so chill. At least it lets him know he’s good at pretending.

But pretending for Will, in this moment, feels dishonest. He hasn’t withheld anything else from him about the time travel debacle— and given the fact that they’re supposed to be going on a date, i.e. possibly becoming  _ involved _ , he sees no use in telling him he’s completely okay.

“I’m not  _ completely _ calm,” he says finally. “But I  _ have _ had twenty-four hours to process it. So I’m more just… lost as to what to do next, because—”

Will interrupts him. “So let me get this straight.”

“Okay.”

“You were able to move freely through time,” Will says, “until you kissed me?”

Derek almost falters. Sure, they’ve  _ alluded _ to it, and they’re, like, having a civil conversation right now, but this is the first time either of them has explicitly mentioned what happened the other night. “I… yeah,” he says. “I guess. Yeah.”

“And now you’re stuck,” Will continues.

“Yup.” Derek knows where this is going. He’s had the same thought.

“So…” The turning gears in Will’s head are almost visible in his expression. “We just have to… I mean, you just… all you have to do is—”

“Kiss you again,” Derek blurts, and Will’s entire face gets red again. “But that’s the problem,” he says. “I can’t violate you like that if you don’t want it to happen again.”

Will doesn’t meet his eyes, but he says, “Well, I came to find you, didn’t I?”

Derek’s stomach sort of flutters. This is not the answer he was expecting. He wishes Will would look at him, but his eyes are set on the road, and he’s still in logic mode. “It makes sense,” he says. “It’s the only thing that changed before you tried to go home.”

“So a kiss will send me back,” Derek reasons, which sounds ridiculous, but so does the idea of accidentally traveling sixty years into the past, so, like.

“Like a fairytale,” Will says.

Derek likes the way that sounds, but doesn’t say it. Will adds, “So we have to kiss, and then you can go home.”

“But that isn’t fair to you,” he replies, shifting to face him in his seat. “Like, I kiss you and leave?”

Will finally, finally meets his eyes, but it’s to tell him, “Well, I think you’re forgetting that none of this makes any sense.”

The tips of his ears are still tinted pink, but he’s back to some brand of indifference, one Derek refuses to be intimidated by. He tries chirping. “So that kiss meant nothing to you?”

The corner of Will’s mouth lifts in the smallest, most gorgeous smile. “You have the biggest ego I’ve ever known,” he says. “And my best friend is Kenny Parson.”

Derek laughs at the roof of the truck. Will gives him a run for his money, and he is so,  _ so _ into it. Sinfully into it. He wants him more than he can say. “But did it?” he prods, just to get a rise out of him.

“Of course it meant something,” Will replies, and his tone is unexpectedly sincere. “Derek, I like you. And that’s why it’s important to me that I help you get home. Safely.”

Derek puts a hand over his heart. “How noble of you.” Will rolls his eyes. “A true Prince Charming.”

Will sighs, but unlike so many other sighs Derek has invoked from him, this one is accompanied by a smile. He looks back out the windshield. They’ve passed through some of downtown, and they’re driving past the park where Derek’s duck friends live. “So…” he says, slowly. “You’re okay with me kissing you, and… riding into the 2021 sunset.”

Will doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

He doesn’t believe him. “Really.”

“Yes, I’m okay with that.”

Derek leans against the window and studies him from across the console. He has one hand at the top of the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift. He doesn’t react to the fact that he’s being studied.  _ Yes, I’m okay with that _ . He sounded so sure of himself.

“So I’ll be the one that got away,” Derek remarks, and Will rolls his eyes again. “You look good when you roll your eyes.”

Will’s blush intensifies, and he bites his lip, which,  _ fuck _ . That’s hot. “Sorry,” Derek mutters, even though he’s not sure if he has to. “I’ve been holding that in for a month.”

“Oh.” Will pauses, contemplatively, for a few seconds before saying, “Well, you have nice eyes.”

“Thank you.” He tries not to smile like a doofus, tries to pretend it doesn’t give him major butterflies to hear him say that, and doesn’t even care if he fails at hiding it. “You do, too.”

For a moment, the truck is quiet. They’ve bypassed the park, and they’re headed towards what looks like a residential area, flanked by the same dense green forest they drove through to get this way from Bittle’s. He kind of has no idea where they’re going, but he trusts him.

Could he do this? Kiss him and then just leave town? Will seems okay with it, but…

Well, okay. Part of him knows that before that first kiss, when he talked to Chowder, he was planning to do something like this the whole time. But on the other side of that rash decision across the bar, he sees the stupidity of his original plan.

And now… now he’s here, in his truck, going on a  _ date _ with him, and— God, he wants to kiss him again.

It’s not like he has much of a choice if he wants to go home.

“Okay.” He pauses, looks over at him again. “I’ll make you a deal.”

Will nods. “Alright.”

“Let’s enjoy tonight,” he says. “You and me. And then you can kiss me, and I’ll go home in the morning.”

Will deliberates. Takes a left turn. Starts nodding. “Deal.”

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

Derek smiles halfway. When Will meets his eyes, he nods back at him. “Chill.”

It’s not the most straightforward plan, but he doesn’t want to give up this night. There’s something good in the air between them, and he won’t go home before he figures out what it is.

He hears Will’s voice in his head.  _ None of this makes any sense _ .

Nonsensical, maybe. But they’re doing this.

He looks out the window again. “Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?”

Will is smiling. He shakes his head. “We’ll be there soon.”

“Are you a serial killer?”

“No.”

“Because it would  _ really _ suck if you were a serial killer—”

“Actually,” Will says, “I’m taking you to a secret passageway where you can travel  _ another _ sixty years into the past.”

Derek snorts, then, when he sees the self-impressed smirk on Will’s face, lets himself fully laugh. “Are you coming with me?”

Will pretends like he’s thinking, then shrugs. “I haven’t decided.”

He leans on his window again, but stays facing him across the car. “You should.”

“I don’t think things would turn out very well for me in 1901,” Will replies. “The technology then… I don’t think I could survive without my radio.”

“Your  _ radio _ ,” Derek laughs. “Imagine how I feel about my phone.”

Will cocks an eyebrow, intrigued. “Say, can you explain the phone thing to me?”

“Yeah. So, like, basically…” He digs into his pocket on pure instinct, before remembering that his phone is where it’s been for the past month— locked in his car in Eric’s parking lot, buried in the glovebox amidst his severely outdated registration papers, various bottles of lotion, and Frank Ocean CDs that don’t work here. “It’s a phone for calling, but it’s not just that.”

Will nods. “Okay.”

“It’s called a  _ smart _ phone.” He mimes holding an iPhone-shaped object. “You can send people messages, like, uh— like telegrams?”

Will scratches at his right ear. “Repeat that first part? What’s like a telegram?”

“Texting. Sending messages between phones.”

Will shakes his head. “Static.”

“ _ Wow _ .” Derek looks at the sky outside, like the universe has something to do with the fact that he can’t talk to Will about the future. But then again, it definitely does. The time travel laws create a conversational barrier. “I guess you’ll just have to wait to find out what a smartphone does.”

“I guess so,” Will laughs, then puts on his blinker and turns onto a dirt path off the road. It’s curvy and looks long, delving into the woods and out of sight. It’s still light enough out that Derek doesn’t worry— directly— about finding Bigfoot down this path.

But then, out his window, he sees a sign posted on a tree.  _ Private Property. No Trespassing. _ “Hey, uh, Will?” He glances over at his driver. “That sign says this is private property.”

“I know.” Will does not seem to care.

“Well, are we allowed to be here?” he presses. “Because I don’t fuck with the cops—”

“Derek…” Will shakes his head. “It’s  _ my _ private property.”

“ _ Ohhhh _ .” He pauses. There’s no end to the dirt path in sight. Is it just a really long driveway? “Are we going to your house?”

“No.” Will rounds a corner, and—  _ oh _ — there’s a clearing here. “My house is about two miles that direction,” he says, pointing further into the woods. “But I own a few acres of land.”

The clearing is something of a field, but it’s not all that much grass, because it opens up to a small pond a little ways down. The sun is in a spot that casts golden shine all across the surface of the water, and wildflowers grow on its banks, goldenrod and lily of the valley mixed with ferns. It’s so picturesque that Derek wants to paint it.

“This is beautiful,” he says, as Will pulls onto a worn patch of the grass clearing. “This is your property?”

“This and most of the woods,” Will replies, then he turns around and looks out the back window, propping his hand on the side of Derek’s seat. Derek tries not to stare as he backs into some kind of makeshift parking spot. His shirt is a nice pale blue color, but the suspenders make the look. It’s way more attractive than it has business being. And with his arm stretched out like that, the shirt hugs his build perfectly. He’s biting at the corner of his mouth as he focuses on backing up. His lip curls inwards, and there are a few freckles on it, and they trail down his neck and across the bridge of his nose and hug his jawline and they’re  _ everywhere _ and—

Derek takes a deep breath.  _ God.  _ He’s so gay.

“No one else knows this place exists,” Will remarks.

“What?” As he puts the car in park, Derek surveys the scene again. It’s so picturesque, so natural. So out of the way. “Really?”

Will nods, slowly, as he shuts the truck off. “It’s… the only safe place in town I know.”

The words hit him like a truck. “Oh.” He keeps still in his seat for a second, weighing the meaning behind those words.

What they’re doing… he forgets routinely just how unsafe it is.

Will seems okay, though— now that they’re in a clearly private place, the secretive anxiety from earlier has taken a backseat, and he wipes his hands together like he’s finishing a job. “Okay,” he says, with an expression that’s much more gentle than anything Derek has ever seen on his face. “Stay there and I’ll get the door for you.”

He gets out of the truck right after he says this, and it takes Derek several seconds to figure out what he means— because there’s no building in sight— but by the time he makes his way to the passenger side, Derek realizes,  _ oh _ . The  _ car _ door. Will pulls it open and holds out a hand. He has a picnic basket slung over his free arm.

“You didn’t have to—” Derek says, stepping down out of the truck. He slides his hand into Will’s, and oh, boy. Oh boy. That is a  _ really _ nice feeling. “I mean, I could’ve—”

“Don’t worry,” Will says, simply, and then, “Come this way.”

He lets Will lead him by the hand. There are calluses galore on his fingers, and Derek has a feeling he could make hours out of just marveling at these hands, from their freckles to their scars to the way they fit in his own. He’s caught up in going over that feeling, letting himself be pulled; Will can lead him anywhere he wants, as long as he’ll be with him for this evening in the sun.

It may not be much. But they have tonight, and Derek  _ wants _ .

When Will seems to decide on a good patch of grass, he sets the basket down and lets go of Derek’s hand to dig into it. What he pulls out is a blanket, checkered green and white, and it’s big when he spreads it out, billowing on the grass.

Will glances up at him, still a little gentle and tentative as he asks, “Is this okay?”

“This is perfect,” Derek replies. For all the romantic in him, he’s never actually been on a picnic date— and now, he thinks, is definitely the perfect time to start.

Will seems to have put a lot of thought into this endeavor, too, because the next thing he does is reach into the basket again and pull something else out. Derek can’t see what it is at first, but it must be fragile, because Will holds it gingerly behind the basket before he turns back to him.

“Also, these—” Oh my  _ God _ . It’s a bouquet of flowers. Will seems, for a second, to be embarrassed— but then Derek sees him make a decision, and he holds the bouquet forward with more confidence. “Uh, these are for you.”

It’s a bundle of peonies, in yellow, pink, and white, and they’re strung together with a piece of twine. When Derek takes them from his outstretched hand, they smell  _ amazing _ , a perfume stronger than anything from a bottle.

He lifts his eyes to Will’s and gives him a breathless smile. He feels like he’s had the wind knocked clean out of him— in the best way possible. “You got me flowers.”

“Well.” Will rubs his freckled forearm. Pink blooms across his cheeks. “They’re from my garden.”

“That’s even  _ better _ ,” Derek declares, and he kind of wants to kiss him right now, but he’ll wait, he decides— he’ll wait until Will is ready. If he kisses him now, he could ruin the whole rest of the night. He resolves himself to saying, “Thank you. They’re beautiful.”

What he thinks, but doesn’t say, is that no one has ever gotten him flowers before.

Will smiles. He has to be careful, or he’s going to get used to that soft smile.  _ You only have tonight, _ he reminds himself.  _ Just make it count. _

“I’m glad you like them,” Will says. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Oh, uh— ch’yeah, obviously.” He almost trips over his own feet on the way down to the blanket, but manages to make it safely without crashing face-first. He thinks he sees Will almost laugh at him, and all he can do is grin.

There’s something good in the air tonight.

Will pulls a few things out of the basket— cardboard takeout containers that he stacks on top of one another, two green glass bottles, a bag of what look like potato chips. He spreads them on the blanket and sifts through them, separating two portions of his packed dinner, and he looks an awful lot like his work-self while he does it— it hits Derek all at once, and maybe it’s just the fact that he’s organizing food, but he can’t believe he’s here with  _ him _ right now, with grouchy Will from the diner, with this man he never  _ really _ thought would give him the time of day, with—  _ God _ , this is the weirdest vacation he’s ever been on.

He kind of likes it. More than he should.

He can’t think like this about someone he’s never going to see again after tonight.

“Maybe we should start over,” he tells Will, as he’s unboxing one of his containers.

Will pauses with his fingers at a cardboard flap. “What?”

“Start over,” he repeats, then holds out a hand for Will to shake. Will looks confused, but not in the way he always looked at the diner when Derek would ask questions just to push his buttons. This confusion is more tinged with intrigue; he reaches to clasp his hand across the blanket.

Derek shakes his hand, puts on his best smile, and says, “I’m Derek Malik Nurse.”

Will pauses mid-handshake, takes a second to consider this. Then a ghost of a smile shows itself on his face, and he nods, finishes the handshake, and says, “I’m William James Poindexter.” He lets go of Derek’s hand, pauses, and ducks his head. Then he adds, “Junior.”

“Junior!” Derek repeats, and it’s an echo of every old person in town he’s ever seen interact with Will across the bar. “That’s so chill.”

“That answers your question about Annie,” Will says, going back to his takeout container. “And the others.”

“Yeah!” Derek can’t help it. He’s grinning. The small piece of information feels like something that the Will from two weeks ago— two  _ days _ ago, even— would have never shared. Is this what an impulsive kiss and a poem in a jar can do? “My dad’s the third,” he adds, which is not helpful given that Theodore Nurse III is a total dick, but Will doesn’t need to know that. “If you have a son, will you make him the third?”

Will shakes his head. “I’m definitely never going to be a father.”

“Why not?” Two seconds after this question has left his lips, he realizes why not. Will chuckles a little, but it’s almost a grim sound, that resigned compliance again to a life lived without love. “Sorry,” he adds. “Sorry. That was—”

“Wait.” Will pauses. He looks up again, passes him the container he’s been opening. “Can you— in your time—?”

“Be a father?” Derek nods. “Yeah, you can, like— you can adopt, or whatever.”

“You can,” Will says, and there’s a world of wonder in his eyes. He stays like that for a second, then lowers his head again, sorting through the rest of the food. “Well, anyhow— that’s for you. They’re, uh— they’re just sandwiches? It’s egg salad. I’ve served you a lot of eggs at the diner, so I was hoping I was right that you liked them— they’re from my barn, actually. It’s almost heavy laying season.”

“You have real chickens?”

“As opposed to what?” Will is almost grinning. “Fake chickens?”

Derek shrugs. “I guess I didn’t think that through.” Will has clearly put a  _ lot _ of effort into putting this picnic together— the sandwich in his box is simple, but there’s a whole little meal right here, and the blanket, and the flowers, and the spot by the pond, and— just,  _ wow _ — Derek likes this. He likes it a lot.

Will is looking at him across the blanket when he looks up. He wants to say something, but can’t decide on what— and Will beats him to it anyway. “I don’t want to start over.”

“Huh?”

“You said we should start over,” Will says. “I don’t want to.”

Derek tips back on the blanket a little. Both of them have long legs, and they take up more surface area than there is free space on the thing— but Derek isn’t complaining; it forces them to sit kind of close together. If he tipped himself forward about a foot, he could kiss him.

Not yet.

“Why don’t you want to start over?”

“Because I like the you that I met in the diner.”

Derek can’t help it. He smiles like a doofus. That is  _ awfully  _ soft coming from someone who he was ninety percent sure wanted to kill him literally two days ago.

“Well,” he replies, after a moment of prolonged eye contact. “Okay. I liked that you, too.”

Will crosses his legs, rests his elbows on his knees, and takes the cap off of his green bottle. It’s Sprite, Derek realizes— in one of those old glass bottles. He takes half a sip, then says, “You meant what you wrote in the poem, then.”

It’s not a question, but it sounds like one. “That and every other,” Derek replies, because if you’re going to be gay, why not go all out, right?

“Is it…” Will looks into his Sprite bottle for a second, then lowers his voice, despite the fact that they’re completely alone. “Is it  _ safe _ to think like that about another man in 2021?”

“Yeah.” Derek nods. “I mean. There are plenty of assholes. And we’re not  _ perfect _ ; it’s not totally equal, especially not for people of color. But compared to right  _ now _ …”

Will nods a little, like he understands.

“But we’re not there,” Derek says. “We’re here, and it  _ isn’t _ safe here. So I’m sorry if I overstepped. I don’t want to put you in danger, ever.”

“You didn’t overstep,” Will replies. “Well— that is, maybe you  _ did _ , but I like you, so I don’t mind.” Derek wants to chirp him for being so fucking  _ sappy _ , but Will wears that sober expression from the car as they were driving away. “But you have to be careful.”

“I know,” Derek replies. “I will be.”

Will chuckles a little. “Not much time left to be now.”

“That’s true.” Derek pauses, looking out over the pond. The sunlight is starting to sparkle off of it, a sunrise for the books. The light hits Will from behind and gives him a golden glow, and it looks…  _ beautiful _ . Will is beautiful. He’s back to a gentle smile and there’s this perpetual, ruddy flush at his nose and his eyes are the color of the sunshine. He wishes— God, he wishes he had a camera. Or even something to draw with.

He wants to remember what he looks like.

“We have tonight,” Derek tells him.

Will nods. He’s still smiling.

“Let’s make it count.”

*

“Can I ask you a question?”

Derek is mid-egg salad sandwich when Will says this. “Technically,” he replies, “that’s a question.”

Will rolls his eyes and smiles at the same time. It’s kind of hot. “Can I ask a  _ second _ question?”

“Now it’s a third.”

“ _ Derek _ .”

He grins wildly. “Okay, ask your question.”

“Why me?”

It’s a short question. He polishes off his crust thinking Will will elaborate, but he doesn’t, so he says, “Huh?” with his mouth half-full.

“I mean, why’d you…” Will leans forward on the blanket a little. “Why’d you stick around for me?”

Oh, so it’s a  _ soft _ question. “Because I like you.”

“But why?” Will pauses. “I thought you just wanted to bother me.”

He counters this by pointing out, “I thought  _ you _ hated me.”

“I did.” Will pauses again. “Or at least I thought I did.”

“What changed?” He leans backwards, props himself on his wrist in the grass. The sinking sun is still warm. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t mind,” Will says. He’s eating, but he speaks between bites, in a much less gross way than Derek has been doing, but, like, whatever, bro. “I think maybe you grew on me.” Will sounds earnest, sincere— self-reflective, even. “Once I figured out you weren’t mocking me. It was just hard to believe that, because—”

“Because it’s not safe to think twice here about another man,” Derek finishes.

Will nods. “Yes.”

“And for the record,” he adds, “I didn’t only want to bother you. But I know I kind of became a nuisance.”

“Oh, you’re still a nuisance,” Will chirps, and Derek laughs.

Will smiles at him and his stomach thrills.

He is in  _ trouble _ .

*

The actual eating of the meal doesn’t take that long. There isn’t a ton of food, just carefully-packed bits and pieces. It turns out there are a few cookies that Will tucked away into the bottom of the basket, and he admits with a blush that’s more adorable than it has business being that they’re his own baking, an old shortbread recipe of his ma’s with dried fruit in the center. Derek downs three of them in record time, and they’re delicious. Will laughs at him.

The sun eventually sinks below the treeline by the pond, but it’s still warm. Derek’s entire  _ body _ is warm, actually— just sitting here, inches across the blanket for him, is enough to keep his whole body at record temperature. Every time Will smiles, it sends something like a warm breeze through him.

“What do you do for fun?” he asks Will, who promptly snorts like this is out of the question.

“Look,” Will replies, “I don’t know what 2021 is like, but I have a job and a farm to keep up, so I don’t really have all that much in the way of leisure time.”

“Are you implying I don’t have a job?”

Will shrugs. “Who knows. You could be one of those traveling artists. Kenny’s old man was one of em’. A guitar player, rumor says. Never knew him.”

“Well, I don’t play the guitar,” Derek replies, “but I do paint. And draw. And write. But you knew that.”

“I thought writing was your job.”

“It is. On a good day.” He pauses, thinks of his dissertation. Yet another responsibility he has to face when he makes his way back to the city. “But I’m getting my PhD, so… I have other stuff to do, too.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Will says. “You’re getting your PhD, but what are you going to do after that?”

“Work in the publishing industry, probably.”

Will squints at him. He’s quiet for too long. When he speaks, his voice is small. “They’ll let you?”

_ Oh.  _ Derek feels the reaction to that in his chest— it’s almost visceral. He can’t help the front that comes up, almost instantaneously. “Do you not think I should be allowed to?”

“No—  _ no _ , not at all. That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.” Will backpedals, shakes his head. To his credit, he looks genuinely dismayed at the prospect that Derek thought he was saying something offensive. “Of course you should. I just meant… is it safe for you to?”

“It’s more than safe,” Derek tells him. “It’s normal. It’s… the world looks very different. There’s still a long way to go, but compared to this—”

“It’s better,” Will concludes.

“ _ Much _ better.”

He can’t make out the expression on Will’s face, but he thinks maybe he doesn’t have to. As long as he knows.

*

At some point, hockey comes up.

“You played in high school,” Derek says. “Tell me about it.”

So Will does— the way he describes it, there’s a world of difference between what he did and the game Derek knows and loves, but at its root it’s the same, rinks and sticks and pucks— no helmets yet, Derek learns, which is kind of awful and dangerous, and he knows if  _ he _ were forced to play hockey without a helmet he’d be concussed in about seven seconds flat, with his luck (that one time on the pond at Samwell with Chowder doesn’t count, because that was shinny).

Will asks him to tell him about college, so he does. Samwell, like most things from Derek’s world, is very different the way he knows it, even compared to things Will has heard from Eric, who, Derek has to keep reminding himself, actually did go there, even if it was sixty years ago. He makes a mental note to look up Eric Bittle in the alumni records when he gets back home. Maybe he could find him in a yearbook.

He’s midway through a story about how he fell off the Haus roof at a kegster, making Will laugh— Will has no concept of house parties, so he likens it to a raging dance, which is the closest common ground they can find— when he trails off. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell the rest of the story, or that anything is wrong. He’s just… he’s  _ distracted _ by that laugh. It’s not much more than a chuckle, a concerned thing at the prospect of Derek hurting himself, but it’s there and it’s one of the best sounds Derek thinks he’s ever heard. Will’s laugh is deep and warm, and there’s a certain pride that swells in him at the fact that he’s causing it in the first place.

“So you  _ weren’t _ killed on impact?” Will asks.

Derek shakes his head, but then completely switches lanes. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“I like the sound of your laugh.”

Will reddens. “You do?”

“Yeah, I love it.” He pauses, relishes in the blush on his face. He wants nothing more but to keep it there. “That day I tripped at Annie’s?”

Will snorts, as if the mere mention of it is entertaining.

“Just like that!”

“It was  _ funny _ ,” Will says. “You’re a klutz.”

“Oh, you don’t even  _ know _ ,” he replies.

“Oh?” It sounds like a challenge.

“Look… okay, check it.” He has clumsy stories galore, and if that’ll make him laugh, he’ll tell them all night long. “My personal favorite falling story.”

Will is already kind of laughing, which is honestly cute as fuck. “Oh, gee.”

“Alright, so it’s my second year of college.” If he’s going to set the scene, he has to do it right. He spreads out his hands and leans forward on the blanket. Their knees bump together, and neither of them pulls away. “I’m in the library. Top floor. You have to be totally quiet on the top floor, ‘cause it’s where all the uptight people study.”

“So you’re uptight people,” Will replies. His knee rubs against his as he shifts a little. It’s the smallest touch in the world, but Derek is so fucking touch-starved that it sends a flutter into his stomach. “Because you were there.”

“No,” he says. “It was a mistake. Trust me. But I had to get a book from up there, so. There I was.”

Will bites his lip. Derek is in  _ so much trouble _ . “Okay.”

“Top of the stairs.”

“Oh, God.”

“I get down six steps.”

“Oh, no.”

“I miss the seventh.”

A spigot bursts in Will, and his laugh starts to get out.

“Trip over myself,” Derek continues. “Tumble down the stairs.  _ Full  _ somersault.” That does it. Will doubles over. His laugh fills the evening air. “I somehow wind up at the bottom of the stairs, flat on my back.”

Will puts a hand over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut to laugh, then halts just a second to ask, “Were you injured?”

Derek dusts the sleeve of his sweater off. “Only my ego.”

Will’s laugh is huge and loud and oh  _ God _ yeah this is exactly what Derek has been wanting. “It was not my finest hour,” he adds, which, just as he predicted, only adds kindle to the fire.

“Did—” Will tries, and fails, to get his laugh under control. “Did people ask if you were okay?”

“Ch’yeah, they did. But I just gave em’ a—” He flashes a thumbs-up. “And peaced out.” Both of Will’s hands are on his stomach. “Yep,” Derek chirps. “That’s it. Laugh at my embarrassment.”

Will’s entire face is red, and he literally  _ guffaws _ . “You offered to tell the story!”

“I’m self-roasting at my own expense.” If Derek smiles any harder, his face is going to break. This boy looks  _ beautiful _ when he laughs. And he sounds it, too. He has never seen a person laugh harder. Their legs are still touching. He wants to touch more of him.

“I guess it’s true what they say about gingers,” Derek remarks.

Will looks up with a question on his face, but he’s still chuckling too hard to get it out. “That you have no souls,” Derek finishes.

“ _ Ha _ .” Will laughs into a fist, and his eyes go shut again. Derek watches him for a few long moments, as he goes through another fit, doubles over, and then finally pulls himself together. He lifts his face, meets Derek’s eyes, and makes what looks like an earnest attempt at taking a deep breath. It only half works, because he snorts halfway through it, but he  _ does _ calm down— slowly but surely.

The smile lingers, and so does the red in his face. It’s crept right to the tops of his gigantic ears. The sun lights up his whole body, bow tie to tousled hair to the evidence of that beautiful laugh. His eyes are bright, and they bore right into Derek like nothing ever has. He feels like he’s being seen for the first time, and maybe doing the seeing, too.

_ God _ . Okay. He can’t help it. He leans back and flashes a grin. “Your ears are red.”

Will sits still for half a second, and he doesn’t break eye contact. Something very subtle changes in his expression; he’s still red in the face, but he blinks and parts his lips and Derek is trying to figure it out what he’s about to say when—

When the next thing he knows, Will is leaning across the blanket, and his mouth is on his.

The kiss is a question he knows the answer to. It’s nothing like the first one, from the other night— where that was impulsive and disorderly, this is a kiss with purpose, with tender, almost romantic intention, and Derek kisses him back without even needing to think about it.

He thinks this might be a one-and-done thing. It’s a good kiss— God, it’s  _ such _ a good kiss— but the deal was they kiss and Derek leaves. Will’s mouth is so steady on his own that it feels like a directioned action, methodical and one-track, like everything else he does.

And then it  _ isn’t _ .

Because when that first kiss ends, Will kisses him again. His mouth is soft, and when Derek peeks, his eyes are closed, and oh, fuck it, they’re  _ doing _ this. They have tonight. If it’s all they have, then so be it. Derek pushes close to him and gives in.

Will’s hand shows up at the side of his face, and he leans into the calloused touch. His hand is tender in its rubbing, and Derek reaches in return for the inside of his elbow; Will thumbs at his jaw. Derek shifts his face to make the angle a little better, alternating between pecks and slightly longer kisses, weighing the merits of parting his lips a little. When they pull away for the first time, it’s because Will sounds like he needs to breathe.

Derek lets him, pressing their foreheads together. Oh  _ God _ , he’s so close. He lets himself stare at his mouth, vaguely aware that Will is looking the same way on him. “Is this okay?” he gets out, half breathless, half flushed, but  _ wanting _ — wanting so much more.

“Yes,” Will says, then exhales and repeats, “ _ Yes _ .”

Okay. He can test the waters. He scoots forward on the blanket, closing some of the distance between their actual bodies, and moves both his hands to rest on Will’s waist. It’s a new place to touch him, and Will doesn’t flinch or even move at all. “How about this?”

Now he nods, and kind of rapidly. His forehead is warm where they touch. “Yes,” he says. It’s a completely new tone of voice— one racked with want, with something like…  _ desire _ , almost. “Very okay.”

Derek beams at him, inches away in the fading light. “ _ Chill _ .”

He closes the distance between them, and when they’re kissing again, there’s a bit more of a rhythm to it, an ebb and flow of gentle lips and soft touches. Will’s lips are chapped, but he is  _ good _ at kissing;  _ fuck _ , he’s really good at it. His hand falls onto Derek’s shoulder, and he presses his fingers into his hair at the base of his neck, and Derek has been thinking about this, thinking  _ so much _ about this. He doesn’t want to stop.

_ God _ . Screw that brown notebook— maybe  _ this _ is the poetry he’s been searching for the whole time.

“Sorry,” Will breathes, during a pause, “if I’m not so good at this. I’ve never—”

“Hey, hey, Will—  _ no _ .” Derek meets his eyes, tips his forehead against his again. “You  _ are _ good at this,” he says, and he means it. “Trust me.”

Will’s cheeks are the color of literal strawberries, and his ears are the same way. “Okay.”

“And besides,” Derek adds, for extra charm, “even if you weren’t, you’re you. And that’s all I want.”

Will smiles. “Okay,” he says, and then his lips are on his again and the whole world fades into sweet, springtime peace.

*

Derek doesn’t know how long, exactly, they sit there like that. He knows they kiss a lot, and that he holds him by the waist, and that they keep almost laughing against each other’s mouths. He knows that his whole body feels warm, inside and out, and he can’t get enough of the way Will’s lips feel on his own. He knows they exchange a few small, brief words.

But he doesn’t know how long it lasts. All he knows is how it ends. They’ve been in the same position for a long time, and they pause to breathe; their foreheads fall together again. Will’s hand has been resting in his hair for awhile, and he shifts to put his forehead against Derek’s shoulder, letting off a long breath.

The sun has long since disappeared. Derek is vaguely aware that he should be cold, but he’s not sure his body has ever been warmer.

It’s been a long time since he was kissed in the first place. It’s been even longer since he was kissed like  _ that _ .

He’s not sure he’s ever really been kissed like that at all.

Will lifts his face from his shoulder, an entire tomato, to tell him, “That should probably do it.”

“Yeah.” Derek is so  _ gone _ , looking at him. “Probably.”

Will’s fingers move, gently, at the back of Derek’s neck. He reaches for one of Derek’s hands, which at some point found a grip on his left suspender, and pulls it up to plant a kiss at his knuckles. It’s high romance. Derek is going to fucking pass out. “Well…” Will murmurs, with chapped lips still brushing Derek’s hand. “I think I oughta get you back to Eric’s.”

Derek grumbles. Dazed with the lingering of Will’s kiss, the prospect of  _ this _ ending is a little too much to wrap his head around. “Let’s stay here.”

Will chuckles. “Derek,” he says, and his voice wraps around Derek’s name like it was meant to fit there. It’s a chide, but it’s so much more than that. Derek wants to hear his name said like that, over and over again. “You have to go home.”

Derek sighs. “I know.”

He presses another kiss to Will’s lips. It’s hard to pull away from it. He tries not to think too much about the fact that these are his last chances, ever, to kiss him.

He’s…  _ God.  _ He’s in deep.

“This has been the best date I’ve ever been on,” he tells him.

Will laughs a little, blushes ever still. “I think you’re just saying that.

“No!” He tugs him by the waist, squeezes the hand Will is still holding. “No, seriously.”

Will quirks an eyebrow. “You mean it?”

“Completely.”

There’s a brief silence, then Will smiles. “I’m glad I could give you that.” His fingers trace the edge of Derek’s wrist, and he pauses. “I’ll— I’ll remember you.”

“So will I,” Derek says, and he tries to ignore the fact that there’s a tiny knot in his stomach at the prospect of keeping him as a memory.

He asked for this. He wanted this.

Will manages, after a long, reluctant while, to get him back into the truck. It’s late, mostly nightfall by now, and they drive along in silence, holding hands across the console. Derek has the flowers in his lap. He’ll press them, he decides. In the notebook he used up while he was here. He’ll keep them at home, to remember this night by.

Not that he needs a memento. He’ll never forget this night.

Will pulls into the spot by the water tower that he was parked in when he showed up. The inn is lit up in the mellow tones of light from within on the corner. The rest of the world is dark, and Will shuts off the headlights. When they’ve sat in silence for a few seconds, Will lets go of his hand and starts, “I, um. I can’t go much closer—”

“No, I know,” Derek says, and they meet eyes across the front seat.

He can’t believe he kissed him.

It’s the best night he’s had in months.

“So this is it,” he says.

Will laughs a little, but it’s a bittersweet sound. “This is it,” he echoes, then pauses, speaks more cautiously. “If something goes wrong… I mean, if you can’t get back— we need a plan.”

Derek nods. “Okay.”

“I want you to get home,” Will adds, “but if you for some reason can’t—”

“Let’s meet up tomorrow if I can’t.” He doubts, after so many kisses, that the time travel powers that be have failed to open his portal again, but he’d rather reassure Will than leave him wondering.

“Okay,” Will says. “At my pond. It’s safe, and private. Do you know how to get there?”

“I…” He would be lying if he said yes. The whole ride to the date, he was marveling at the fact that they were going on one, and for the past ten minutes of the drive back, he’s been holding Will’s hand and reliving the kisses they shared on the picnic blanket and realizing he’s going to be thinking about them for months.

“It’s the dirt path right after number 16 Oak Drive, okay?” Will says. “16 Oak.”

“16 Oak Drive,” he repeats.

“Yes.” Will pauses. “I hope you won’t have to use it.”

“Me, too,” Derek replies, but to say that means he hopes he’ll never see him again, and, oh,  _ God _ . Maybe kissing him that much was a bad idea. It’s making him want things he can’t have.

They stay in the truck for a moment more. Then Will sighs and says, “Well.”

Derek reaches for his hand again, which is still resting on the gear shift. “It’s been chill, Will Poindexter,” he says. “I’ll remember you.”

“So will I,” Will says.

Derek pauses with his hand on top of his. “Is it okay if I kiss you?”

Will does a reflex scan of the area, out the front windshield first and then around the whole, visible periphery of the truck. It’s a paranoid thing, almost blatant fear. “It’s okay if not,” Derek adds.

Will shakes his head a little, meets his eyes again. “There’s no one around.”

So they kiss. It’s soft and long and Derek half doesn’t want to pull away, so Will does that part of it for him. “Have a safe trip home,” he whispers.

“Thank you,” Derek says, because it’s all he can say. His stomach hurts a little. He hasn’t felt like this about someone in… he doesn’t know how long. And he’s leaving. He can never come back here. “Look me up if you’re ever in New York after 1996.”

Will chuckles. “I don’t think I’ll live that long.”

“Aw, yeah, you will.” Derek stares at his lips too long, and Will kisses him again. He, too, seems to linger this time, like he knows it’s a finite thing that he alone can change the length of.

“Okay,” Will breathes, when they’ve pulled away.

“Okay,” Derek echoes. He knows what this means. “Thank you. For everything.”

Will’s eyes are soft. Derek wants to memorize this softness on him, to remember him this way, not the angry way. “Good luck with your book,” he says.

“Thank you.”

Derek kisses him one last time, then turns to get out of the truck. He brings his flowers with him, smiles at Will just before he closes the passenger’s side door, and watches Will smile back. He gives him a wave, and Derek winks like it doesn’t hurt more than anything has in a long time.

_ Will.  _ He’ll be thinking that name for years.

But he knows where he has to go. Home has been waiting for him.

Once, on his walk back to Eric’s, he turns back to look at the truck. Will has turned the headlights back on, and he’s in the passenger’s seat, not exactly doing anything but not driving yet, either. Derek lifts his hand in a wave, holding his flowers to his chest with the other.

Will waves back, and then the truck jolts into motion and pulls onto the road.

As he crosses the parking lot, walks past his own car, Derek watches his taillights fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand we’re in it now, folks. [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and feel free to talk to me there or in the comments!! Thank you for reading. <3


	19. in your corner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friends, let me be the first to profusely apologize for this delay. On top of the fact that I was traveling last week, my school recently made the choice to send us home because of the pandemic, so this has been a busy and tumultuous time to say the least. The good news is that in about 36 hours, I’ll be all settled at home, so you can expect updates to resume normally. Thank you so much for your patience; y’all are the best. <3 Without further ado: chapter 19.

_ May 14th, 1961 _

_ Day 37 In Good Haven _

As it turns out, Will Poindexter is an idiot.

Because the thing is… there are rational ways to go about a necessary task. And then there are completely irrational, entirely stupid ways. Last night, Will chose the latter.

This morning, he can’t stop thinking about Derek’s lips.

He should have waited until the  _ very _ last second. In the truck, about to send him back off to Eric’s. It should’ve been a quick, businesslike peck on the mouth.  _ Thank you for your visit to my century, and for the crisis of passion. Now go away. _

But  _ nooo _ . He had to kiss him at the pond. He had to let himself dissolve in the feeling of Derek’s mouth on his own. He had to hold him close and give himself up to him and  _ feel _ all these things he’d never felt before, and oh,  _ God _ —

Now he can’t stop thinking about it.

And Derek is gone. Derek has left town; he’s going home. It’s where he belongs, and Will is glad he’s going there. He deserves to be successful and stable in the place that his entire life resides. This may have been an anomaly of a vacation for him, but he got what he wanted out of it. He wrote his book, and he’s going home now, and Will is happy for him.

Or at least that’s what he keeps telling himself, like it’ll get the thought of soft kisses and gentle touches and foreheads resting together during pauses for breath out of his mind.

Will paces back and forth at the pond, checking his pocket watch compulsively. He and Derek didn’t agree on a time to meet in case of time travel disaster, so he’s been here all morning, since right after his breakfast and regular barn chores for the day, and visiting Ma to lay flowers for Mother’s Day. It didn’t occur to him that he could be waiting for awhile— possibly to no avail— until he had already made the walk through the woods.

Now he’s here. Waiting. For the man who kissed him and wrote poems for him and stole a little piece of his heart and is  _ never going to come back _ .

He is such a fool. He is  _ such  _ a fool.

But it’s okay, right? It’ll be okay. He just needs to give it time. Give it a few weeks and he’ll be well past this. He can throw himself into work, into the busy summer season at the farm. Maybe he’ll plant a huge vegetable garden this year. Maybe he’ll finally go see about getting sheep. Maybe he’ll help out at the farm stand with hay season. Maybe—

Oh, who is he kidding. He’s going to be thinking about this man for  _ years _ .

Derek asked him, too. Derek made sure Will was okay with this. He can still hear his voice from last night in his head—  _ you’re okay with that? I’ll be the one that got away?  _ But what else was Will supposed to say? No, I’m not okay with this? No, I brought myself all the way over to Eric’s and dressed up and packed us a picnic just to take you out on a date but I wouldn’t be okay with kissing you so that you could get back to your time? No, that kiss over the diner bar didn’t do anything for me? No, I don’t want you every time I look at you?

It’s okay. It’s fine. Everything will be okay. He just needs to give himself time. It hasn’t even been 24 hours.

He never, ever,  _ ever _ should’ve gotten himself into this.

At least it’s a beautiful day. The sun shines bright on the pond, and the wind sifts through the reeds at the water line. A family of ducks, complete with the host of babies that must’ve only hatched recently, swims across the surface, in a neat line all trailing the mama.

He’s so deep in his own head that he doesn’t hear the car coming up the dirt path, nor does he hear the way its engine shuts off, or even the closing door. He’s too busy pacing, too busy watching the pond. The sky is just as clear as it was yesterday. When he gets home, he’ll do some gardening. It’s almost time for his yearly planting. He loves his garden— Ma’s garden, really. Those plants are the perfect excuse to spend a whole afternoon out in the sun. He could make an entire weekend just out of yard maintenance—

“Good news, Will.”

Will whips around; the voice startles him halfway out of his skin. When he’s turned in its direction, he finds himself mere yards away from its owner, who should  _ not _ be here right now; he should be at  _ least _ decades of years and hundreds of miles away from this place—

“Looks like you’re stuck with me for a little longer.”

“Derek.” Will paces across the grass to him, and they meet in the middle. He’s in jeans and a short-sleeve shirt that shows his tattoo, and he looks  _ way _ too calm. “You couldn’t get out?”

“I drove for an hour and a half,” Derek replies, tucking his hands into his pockets. “No luck.”

Will’s stomach clenches. Half of him was ready for this possibility; the other half was afraid of it. “Oh,  _ no _ .”

“It’s okay!” Derek is  _ grinning _ , because of course he is, and Will would be angry with him for smiling about something so serious if he didn’t look so  _ beautiful _ doing it. “It’s chill. I was prepared for this. Mentally.”

Will  _ cannot _ handle this right now. “How are you not flipping your wig?”

“I’m fine!” Derek insists. “I’m chill. I’m okay. Did you miss me?”

Will lets out a long breath. He’s still here. He’s standing in front of him and he kissed him last night and he’s still here. “I thought you were  _ gone _ .”

“Yeah,” Derek says, “but did you miss me?”

“ _ Derek _ .”

Derek steps forward, takes one of Will’s hands, and presses his mouth to his. Will’s world goes quiet. He closes his eyes.

“Sorry,” Derek murmurs, when they’ve broken apart. “That was… impulsive.”

“No, no,” Will says, trying to get a handle on the English language. “It’s okay.” He pauses, lets out a breath as Derek presses against his forehead. “I just… how are you so calm right now?”

Derek shrugs. He hooks his free hand into Will’s belt loop by the thumb. “That’s just how I am.”

Will bites back a roll of his eyes. “Right, I forgot.” He pauses, vaguely aware that Derek is grinning at him. “‘Chill’.”

“Chill,” Derek laughs, but how can he  _ laugh _ right now—

“But you’re stuck,” Will says, like that will make him see the gravity of the situation before them. “ _ Derek _ . You’re still stuck— we didn’t think—”

“Hey, hey hey, hold up,” Derek interrupts. “Here. It’s okay.” He squeezes his hand. There’s barely enough space between their faces for them to meet eyes, so he cups the bottom of Derek’s chin, feels the gentle stubble that hugs his cheek. “I’m okay,” Derek says. “We don’t understand how it works, but I’m safe, and I’m here.” He pauses. Will sees his lips flicker, like he wants to smile, and he mostly hates himself for zeroing right in on them like there aren’t bigger problems at hand.

“And I get to see you again,” Derek adds, finally, which is cause for Will to look back up at him.

“Can I say something that might offend you?” he says.

Derek nods. “Yeah.”

“You’re an idiot.”

_ Now _ the smile takes over Derek’s mouth. Will doesn’t hesitate when he kisses it this time, and Derek kisses him right back, and he’s so warm and he can’t help himself and he’s in  _ so  _ much deeper than he should be.

It’s a bad idea. It’s the  _ worst _ idea. But he’s in this now, and there’s no turning back.

*

_ May 15th, 1961 _

_ Day 38 In Good Haven _

At work on Monday morning, he catches Kenny up to speed.

It’s a brief exchange, mostly because they only have fifteen minutes to open together, and that doesn’t count the possibility of River or Johnson coming in the back at any given moment. He pulls him into the corner by the bar and answers the question he can already see on Kent’s face.

“I took your advice,” Will says, in a voice barely above a whisper.

Kent’s eyes widen, and the beginnings of a smile find his face. “You took him out?”

“Kenny,  _ shhhh _ .” Will leans forward, like closing the space between them will help with the secrecy. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“Of course I’m not going to  _ tell _ anyone,” Kent replies, and now he’s grinning openly. “How was it?”

“It was good, but—” He should have thought this through better. This isn’t a safe conversation to have out in the open, even if ‘the open’ is the locked dining room, in mostly darkness, before hours. “But we might have to wait to talk about this until later.”

Kent pouts. “ _ Dexy _ . I want  _ details _ .”

“You’re sick and twisted.”

“I didn’t mean  _ those _ kind of details.”

“You’re still sick and twisted.” Will ties his apron around his waist. “There’ve been…  _ developments _ .”

Kent waggles his eyebrows. “What kind of developments?”

“Like he’s stu—”

Will cuts himself off at the sound of footsteps in the kitchen. Through the window, he can see the light turn on, and then River gives them both a wave. He has his apron over his shoulder, and his hair is not yet braided for the day. “Morning, fellas.”

“Morning, Riv,” Will calls, then steps away from Kent. “Best be opening up now.”

“You’re  _ evil _ ,” Kent hisses.

Will shoots him a glare that he hopes conveys what he wants to say, but won’t, which is, effectively,  _ not now, Kenny.  _ Kent sticks his tongue out at him as he goes to get the front door.

And for awhile, that’s all that happens. Until midmorning, when Derek comes in.

*

Derek decides that it’s a good day.

The general principle of living for the past five days— ever since he realized he was stuck here, and  _ re- _ realized it yesterday morning— has been that the only viable option left is to go with the flow. The internal recesses of his brain sort of hate him for this decision, because as chill as he may seem, most of what’s going on up there is, like, constant internal screaming, but… that’s not the point. When you’re stuck and apparently out of options, the only option left is to try and roll with it.

So that’s what he’s resigned to do.

It’s not that he’s not freaking out, because he definitely is. He just, uh. Has learned to bury any and every freak-out under about seven different layers of false chill and bravado.

Also, he knows he would be a  _ lot _ more spooked if he didn’t have anyone to go to about this. So the fact that Will knows is, well… it’s good. It means he has someone in his corner.

And double also, they kiss now. Are they involved? He’s pretty sure they are. He’s heading to this diner this morning to test his theory.

Will told him to come, anyway. They parted yesterday with more than a few hasty kisses and instructions from Will to come see him at work this morning, so they could start to figure out a plan. Derek spends a little extra time making sure he looks good in the mirror at Eric’s, then makes his way downtown.

In earnest, he brings his bag and his notebooks, knowing full well there’s not much of a chance he’ll be getting anything done sitting across from Will. Even when they’ve been apart, Will has been on his mind basically all weekend. He’s still wrapping his head around the fact that he, apparently, is the most romantic man Derek has ever courted.

(Like, seriously,  _ flowers _ ? A picnic by a pond? A literal bow tie? Who does that? He feels like he’s in a movie.)

Also, he’s, uh… he’s a fantastic kisser.

At Annie’s, Kent is smoking behind the host stand today. It smells awful, but it’s not like he’s the first person to do it in here. Or in any public space, for that matter. Literally every person in Good Haven is going to develop a lung infection by 1975.

Except Will, actually. He’s never seen Will with a cigarette.

“Oh,” Kent remarks, as he approaches his stand. He glances over his shoulder towards the bar, then back to Derek. “So you’re back,” he says. “Thought you were gone for good.”

“I can’t help it, Kent,” Derek replies. “I missed your sparkling personality.”

“Ha, ha.” Kent is grinning at him, and he puts out his cigarette. “What do you want? Free food?”

“Nah, just your barkeep’s attention.” He catches sight of Will, steadfast as ever in his usual location, and breezes past Kent with a wink. “Wish me luck.”

He  _ thinks _ he hears Kent laugh at him, but he can’t be sure. He’s too far across the room to care by the time he registers it anyways. Will is pouring coffee for the old librarian lady when Derek slides into his usual stool. “Hey, barkeep,” he says, catching his eye and flashing a grin. “You’re looking sharp this morning.”

Will holds eye contact with him for just a second, does not smile, and then looks back to the mug he’s pouring into. “Good morning.”

Derek pauses, squinting at him a little. It’s not that Will’s mood is  _ unfamiliar _ , just that this bored indifference is a world of different from the Will from this weekend. Will finishes with the lady’s coffee, then returns the pot to its place behind the bar, wiping his hands on one of his endless rags.

He doesn’t look Derek’s way.

“I think I’ll try something new today,” Derek decides out loud. He realizes too late that he doesn’t have a menu, but whatever. “Do you have any recommendations?”

“What, for food?” Will asks, and when he nods, Will just shrugs. “I can get you a menu. Don’tcha know what you like, by now?”

Derek rests his chin in one hand. “I thought you might be able to give me your two cents.”

Will sighs a little and turns away. “I’ll get you a menu.”

He  _ knows _ this is a front. He knows Will can’t be too friendly to him, because there are dozens of people in this room who have known Will all his life and can’t catch wind of the fact that there’s something going on between him. But it’s still weird, still a little uncomfortable— to pretend like they still dislike each other. Or at least that Will dislikes him.

_ You can’t get self-conscious about this. You just have to roll with it. _

Will returns with a menu, as Derek is pulling his notebook from his messenger bag. Maybe he’ll spend the day drawing. Maybe he’ll start book  _ three _ . All of a sudden, it feels like he has all the time in the world.

One freckly hand pats the paper menu in front of him. “There you go.”

“Thanks, Will.”

He decides on some kind of egg and toast combo, and Will pours him a coffee after putting in his order. While he waits, he drops fragments of poems into his notebook, trying to decide if he wants to toss one in the jar for Will to see later.

_ your eyes _

_ look like the sun _

_ when it’s waking up _

_ from a long winter _

He decides against it for now. More quickly than usual, Will comes over from the kitchen window with his food. It looks and smells delish, to be honest, and Derek flashes a smile up at him across the bar as he puts it down in front of him.

“There you are,” Will says, still all business. “Can I get you anything else?”

Derek meets his eyes. He can’t read an ounce of softness in them, and he knows he’s not supposed to, but  _ God _ , this is weird. It feels like acting. Acting where they pretend they didn’t spend the weekend pressed to each other’s lips.

_ Chill _ , he reminds himself, and he shakes his head. “I’m all good.”

The food is good, as is the writing. But as soon as he’s finished eating, Will clears his plate without being asked, and within another few minutes there’s a check in front of him.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Will says, but his tone feels less nonchalant than that. It’s almost an instruction to get out.

Derek takes the receipt. It looks normal at first, like the countless others he’s accumulated, with their minimally expensive totals, a sum of his caffeine intake and whatever food he’s ordered— but today there’s something else, at the very bottom of the thin paper.

It’s a note, in a handwritten scrawl that can only belong to Will. First, a series of numbers that must be a phone number, sans the area code—  _ 824-1401 _ . And under that,  _ Come back at close. 9:05 _

That’s all it says. Derek glances up to find Will, but he’s disappeared into the back, getting orders from that kitchen window again. The number must be his, and the instruction… 

Come back at close.

Okay. He can do that.

*

In truth, he shows up ten minutes before closing time. He waits in his car until he sees all the late-night dwellers— a crowd to which he has belonged, he realizes, several times— get in their cars and head out. He has no idea who’s closing with Will, if anyone, but he can see him through the dining room windows from the parking lot— a ginger-topped figure in blue and white, bustling around the place doing his various closing chores.

He said to come back at 9:05. The digital clock in Derek’s car has been acting up, but from where he’s parked, he can see the town clock tower, two blocks down the road sticking up among all the shorter buildings. He waits for the nine bell tolls that signal the hour, watches the minute hand creep slowly past the 12. In the window, Will flips the sign from  _ OPEN  _ to  _ CLOSED - Come Again _ .

Derek exercises self-control. He waits two entire extra minutes after 9:05. He feels like this is maybe the 1961 equivalent of leaving a Snapchat unopened for a few minutes before opening it up and responding, so you don’t seem too desperate.

Then he sees the front door open, and a big-eared ginger head pokes out of it, surveying the scene. He catches sight of Derek’s car, then gives a subtle wave, beckons for him, and closes the door again.

Okay. Game on. He gets out of his car, darts across the lot, and slips through the front door. The dining room is dark, and he can’t see the sneaking waiter. “Will?”

“Derek— hi.” Will peeks out from behind the bar. “Over here. Couldja make sure the door’s locked?”

“Yeah, hold on.” He turns and flips the deadbolt on the front door. “Okay, done.”

“Thank you.” Will beckons for him from his spot, then repeats, “Over here.”

Derek crosses the checkerboard floor, with tentative steps. Last he saw Will, he was effectively being kicked out of here, which he knew was necessary but was still also weird. “Hey,” he says, as they meet eyes.

“Hi,” Will says. Without the main lights on in here, he’s not much more than a shadow in his corner. “C’mere.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Behind the bar?”

Will nods, so he does; he makes his way through the little half-door things on the far end that separate the bar from the actual dining area. Will is still huddled behind the wall by the sink, like it’s a post he’s afraid of abandoning.

“Are you okay?” Derek whispers.

“Yes,” Will says, then he reaches for him, grabs both of his hands, and presses Derek into the corner with him. A moment more and Will is kissing him in the dark, a tender gesture that leaves him half-dazed.

“Oh,” he says, when Will pulls away. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry I was short with you today,” Will starts, in a low voice that matches his paranoid body language. “And I’m sorry I basically threw you out. I— I just, I have to explain something to you.”

Derek squeezes his hands. “Okay.”

“Derek— I—” Will’s whisper is almost shaky. “We have to be careful.”

“I know.”

“I mean  _ very _ careful.” He’s no more than an inch away in the dark. They’re alone, but Will still looks so, so scared. “I… I know you only mean to be sweet, and I like it; I do, I like it a lot— but— if anyone were to get suspicious of us—”

“I’m sorry, Will,” Derek whispers.

“Please don’t be sorry.” Now it’s Will’s turn to squeeze his hand, and he brings one of them to his face, still interlaced with his own. He takes a long, stabilizing breath, then kisses the back of Derek’s knuckle and says, “Derek.”

Derek waits.

“I like you so much,” Will says. “But— I don’t know how you got here, and it’s confusing, and it’s— it’s not safe here, no matter what it’s like for you at home; it isn’t safe here— and no one suspects me, but if they start to suspect me, then they suspect you, and—”

“Will, I didn’t mean to worry you like this,” Derek says. His anxiety is tangible, and his stomach knots at the thought of causing this much worry in one person. “I—”

“It’s just— for people like us,” Will says, “for people like you and people like me— for  _ men _ like you with men like me—”

“I know,” Derek interrupts him. He moves his hand to rest on Will’s neck, then finishes, “We can’t be seen together.”

Despair floods in Will’s eyes, and his brows crease. “I’m sorry, Derek.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he assures him. “Take a deep breath.”

“Okay.” Will closes his eyes for this, and he obeys, taking a big one in and out through his mouth. It’s bad form, and Derek’s old therapist would have encouraged him to do it better, but it’s just the two of them in this tiny space in the dark and it’s all he can do. “Okay,” Will repeats. He opens his eyes.

“Look,” Derek says, hyper-aware of the way he can feel Will’s breath on his face. “None of this makes sense, and… I’m sorry if I was too forward today. I was just…” He almost laughs a little. “Excited. To see you.”

“Me, too,” Will says, and he sounds earnest. “I’m sorry I couldn’t show it.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

Will takes another breath, then purses his lips, which he has no business doing when he’s so close to Derek’s face, but that’s really not, Derek reminds himself, what he should be focusing on right now. They’re tipped against the corner of the wall at an awkward angle, and they still clutch each other’s hands, and they may be in the middle of a very dangerous world, but in this moment, all there is the two of them. Will and him.

“I want… I want to help you,” Will says. “I want to be with you while you figure this out.”

“I want that, too.” It’s all he wants right now.

“So… that’s what we’ll do.” Will’s words sound like a decision. He pulls his left hand out of Derek’s, and Derek watches as he grabs hold of his pinky by his own. “We’re going to figure this out,” he says, holding up the link of their fingers for him to see. “You and me.”

“You and me?” Derek breathes, and it feels like a promise.

Will nods. He brandishes the pinky link for him. “You and me.”

“Okay,” Derek replies, as Will drops their hands. “Can I kiss you?”

Will nods, and when his lips find his it’s warm and intoxicating and sweet all at once. It’s a dangerous kiss, in a place like this— but they’re alone, and it’s the only thing Derek can think to need.

“We’re going to do this,” Will whispers, with one hand resting against his shoulder.

“Yes,” Derek affirms. “We just need to be careful.”

Will nods. “Exactly,” he says, and then, “We, uh… I think we need a plan.”

Derek cups his face in one hand. For weeks, he’s been wanting to touch these fucking  _ freckles _ . God. He traces a line of them with his thumb, across his cheek to his jaw. “Okay.”

“Do you still have my telephone number?” Will asks. “I wrote it on your check today.”

“Yeah.” It’s in his pocket, actually. “I kept it.”

“Perfect,” Will says, and Derek watches the gears turn in his head. He resists the temptation for several seconds to press a kiss to his nose, then just does it anyway. Will’s cheeks flush, something visible even in the low light, but he doesn’t retract from any of the touch.

“So… you call me,” Will adds, after a moment’s quiet. “Tomorrow morning? I don’t work until two.”

“Okay,” Derek says. “I’ll call you.”

“I think…” Will glances out towards the bar, to the empty, dark dining room. “I think it’s probably best if you don’t come in here every single day.”

“That’s fair enough.” Today was a balancing act he’s not sure he cares to relive anytime soon. “But I need to, like… do  _ something _ . During the day.”

“We can figure that out,” Will says. “We can talk about all that.”

He nods. “Okay,” he says. “Alright.”

Will meets his eyes. Thank God, some of the anxiety in his face has depleted. Derek rubs at his cheek again. “Are you okay?” Will asks.

“I’m chill,” Derek says. “If you are.”

Will takes another long breath, then starts to nod. “I… I think I am now,” he replies, then repeats, “We’re going to do this.”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “You and me.”

“You and me,” Will repeats. It’s a calming thing, a mantra, almost. “You have me in your corner.”

There is a whole lot of uncertainty stretched out ahead. But for this moment, in this dark corner, he has Will, and he’s not sure he needs anything else.

Derek presses a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Will.”

Will smiles, still flushing a little. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Does this, um.” He pauses. Fishes for his words. “Does this mean we’re going together?”

Derek  _ thinks _ he knows what he’s asking, but waits for another elaboration. It comes, right on schedule. “I mean,” Will continues, “are we seeing each other?”

Derek can’t help it. He grins. “Are you asking if I’m your boyfriend?”

Something dawns on Will’s face. He steadies, then nods. “I… I think so.”

“Well.” Derek crafts his response carefully. The can’t-seem-too-desperate thing from the car has flown out a window. He’s maybe never been more desperate for another person in his life. “I would certainly, like, be down for that.”

Will raises his eyebrows. “So… we are, then? Going together?”

“I mean.” Derek half-grins. “You kissed me, like,  _ several _ times the other night.”

“You kissed me just as much,” Will whispers.

“Well, sue me,” he says. “It was time well spent.”

He kisses him to prove it, then almost falls backwards against the wall. Will laughs out of the kiss. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I won’t,” he tells him. “I have you in my corner.”

Will laughs, kisses him again, and Derek is… well.

He’s in trouble.


	20. muse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody:  
> Me every three seconds in this fic: Hey, Dex's parents are dead! Remember? Remember how they died when he was a teenager? Haha! Dex is an orphan!!! Remember??????
> 
> (I'm so sorry.)

_ May 19th, 1961 _

_ Day 42 In Good Haven _

Derek flags Eric down in the kitchen.

It’s after breakfast but before lunch, and he’s doing dishes, because he’s physically incapable of not being in his kitchen. Warm sunlight filters in through the windows, reflecting off of his simple dishware as he washes each piece. He wears his fruit apron, and he’s whistling some unfamiliar melody. His eyes are on his sudsy hands, sneaking a glance out the window every now and then, and he looks completely at ease. Derek, for a second, feels guilty for interrupting his dish-induced zen.

But he has to. “Hey, uh… Eric?” Eric glances over his shoulder with a smile, and he adds, “Could I talk to you?”

Eric shuts the water off in the sink and dries his hands on his apron. “Sure thing, honey.”

Derek has gone over the speech he’s about to give many times over the past few days— on the phone with Will, in his head in solitude, even in writing through the notes he wrote down when they were brainstorming. “Maybe we should sit,” he says.

What he’s about to say is all just a carefully crafted lie, and he  _ does _ feel guilty for lying to Eric, who’s done nothing but be helpful to him— but it’s the most logical next step in the makeshift plan he and Will have been coming up with. And the only thing they can do is take this one step at a time.

Eric raises his eyebrows a little as he finishes drying off. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah— oh, yeah, I’m totally chill.” Derek leans against the dining table. “I just…”

When Eric sits down, he takes the seat across from him. Eric folds his hands on top of the mahogany surface, like he can tell Derek means business.

“... I haven’t been totally honest with you,” Derek finishes.

Eric’s face is hard to read— a little tilt of the head, a question in his eyes. Derek can tell he’s been too vague. “Oh?”

“Let me explain,” he says.

Eric shifts in his seat a little, then nods. “Well, alright.”

He knows this part. He’s made up an entirely different version of the truth, to fit the bizarre situation he’s somehow gotten himself caught in.

Faking it, after all, is kind of what he does best.

“I told you I was a writer, and… that’s  _ true _ , but…” He meets Eric’s eyes and tries his best to look down in the dumps. “The  _ whole _ truth is, I’m out of work.” Eric says nothing, but his eyes are his tell. His eyebrows tilt inwards, and his face floods with sympathy. Derek continues. “I’ve spoken on the phone with a couple people, back in New York, but… for months, I haven’t been able to find someone willing to pay me for a gig. That’s why I came up here. I thought I might find work on my way, but… when I wound up in Good Haven, I thought I could write something  _ big _ . Something good.” He lets out a sigh, hangs his head. “But… everyone I’ve called doesn’t seem to think I’ve written anything remarkable, and, well…” He lowers his voice a little, feigns shame. “I barely have enough money to get home to New York.”

“Oh, honey.” When he looks up at Eric again, his hand has found its way to his heart. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize— and all this time I’ve been letting you pay me—”

“Oh, wait; no, no, that’s—” Derek shakes his head. Wrong message. “That’s not what this is about. It’s not about  _ paying _ ; that’s not a problem. It’s more just… it’s looking like I might be here a little longer than I planned.” He takes a deep breath, hears Will’s voice in his head, from their phone call last night.  _ Make it seem like it’s your only option.  _ “And because of that… I need a job.”

Eric has, thank God, stopped looking like Derek is giving him a heart attack of pity. He brings his hand to his face and rests it on his chin. “Hm,” he says. “Okay.”

“I was just, uh…” Derek twirls a curl in his hand, faux-absentmindedly. “Wondering if you knew of anything.”

“I see.” Eric pauses, then says, “I’m really sorry about your situation, honey. I can’t imagine. Anybody would be lucky to have you workin’ with them.”

“Times are tough,” Derek replies, because that feels like a very it’s-1961-and-I’m-down-on-my-luck thing to say.

It works. Eric nods. “Wouldn’t ya know it,” he says. “Well… let me see. I wanna help you out.”

_ Boom. Top shelf.  _ Derek can see him thinking about it, wanting to lend a hand— just like Will said he would.  _ Eric likes a project,  _ he told him,  _ something to think about. If you ask him for a job, it’ll give him something to do.  _ “I appreciate that, Eric.”

“It just ain’t right,” Eric remarks, glancing out the window for a second, then shaking his head. “Well, now that you say it… you’re a hockey man.” Derek almost blows his own cover. What does hockey have to do with it? “Our high school coach is real old, thinkin’ of retiring, and… and I think Kent said a friend of his from Canada is interested in the job, but… maybe I oughta intervene, if you’re lookin’ for work?”

“Oh— I don’t think I can do that,” Derek replies, almost feeling bad for having to shoot down his first suggestion. A coaching job sounds chill, but… it’s May. “I don’t expect to be here for  _ that _ long. Maybe just the summer.” In reality, he has no idea how long time will keep him here. But to wait on a job that won’t start until hockey season… he can’t take that chance.

“Oh, I see.” Eric, thank God, doesn’t look offended. He puts his hand on his chin again. “Well, hm…”

“Here, uh— check it.” Best to lay it all out, right? He has to, like, market his skills. “I can write; I can edit most anything— and I can paint.” This is the part where having a liberal arts degree in, well, the arts, does not exactly come in handy. Theodore Nurse III, AKA the certified richest and most pompous dad in history, warned him about this while he was at Samwell (many, many times, at that)—  _ Derek, don’t get a useless degree. Pursue something with a career attached. Go to law school. Medical school, even.  _ Needless to say, Derek did not heed that advice, because fuck off, Dad. I love my art.

And look at him now. Groveling for a beat job in 1961 small-town New England.

He will never give Theodore Nurse III the satisfaction of being right.

“I’ll do pretty much anything,” he tells Eric. “I just can’t cook well, and I’m not good at fixing things.” He pauses, then almost laughs. “Actually, I’m pretty good at breaking things.”

Eric smiles. “Well, alright, Derek. Tell you what. I want to help you, and I’ll ask around, alright?” He reaches to pat him on the shoulder. “I’ll be thinking.”

“Thank you, Eric,” Derek says.  _ He wins in a shootout.  _ “I appreciate that so much.”

“Of course, honey,” Eric says. “I want to help you. I’m real sorry for the sore spot you’re in.” He gets up from his chair, pushes it back in.

On his way over to his dishes, he remarks, “This town… you’d be surprised. We can all rally and do some good, when the time’s right for it.”

Somehow, Derek believes him.

*

_ May 21st, 1961 _

_ Day 44 In Good Haven _

It’s odd seeing your own name on a grave.

Not that Will isn’t used to it. For eleven years, he’s been visiting the same site near weekly, seeing the same names, planting the same handful of flowers in the springtime. Today, the time has come for the season. He walks through Good Haven Cemetery with a tray of planting supplies— fertilizer for Ma’s hydrangea, his trowel from the shed at home, dahlia starters, marigold seeds.

It’s planting day.

To get to his parents, he has to pass the sites of other family— both sets of his grandparents, some gone sooner than others, his twin uncles on Ma’s side who died overseas in 1942, an aunt he never knew who got the flu during the Depression. His parents are buried next to an oak tree, with an empty plot on the other side. He bought it when he turned eighteen, for when the time comes.

There’s enough sunshine in the spot for the poppy he planted for Pa, which, thank God, survived the winter— but enough shade for Ma’s hydrangea too. When he bought it, it flowered blue, but the soil has turned it purple over the years.

“Heya, Ma.” He kneels at the headstone. “Hi, Pa.”

He helped Ma pick the stone out, five days after they found out he’d died. She wanted to be lay to rest with him, but no one knew she’d be going there just two years after him.

_ Capt. William James Poindexter, Sr. _

_ US Navy _

_ 19 July 1914 - 20 October 1950 _

_ His Wife, Mary Elizabeth _

_ 12 September 1914 - 20 November 1952 _

The hydrangea, like the poppy, has made it through the winter, as evidenced by the green buds popping up all over its stalky branches. The bouquet of early blooms from the garden at home that he brought here last Sunday for Mother’s Day is wilting significantly. They’re mostly peonies, her favorite, and he thinks about taking them but decides to leave them be. He’s here every Sunday, anyhow— he can refresh them next weekend.

Will digs up the loose soil between the two perennials, where he usually plants his one-season flowers, then considers what he has in his tray.

“I dunno, Ma,” he mumbles. “D’ya think I oughta get some more?”

The oak leaves rustle in the breeze, and he pauses. Something in him hopes that she might answer. Impossibly.

“Well.” He digs a small hole for his first dahlia. “Better to use what you have first.”

Planting itself is easy work. He has his watering can, also from home, in his trunk, and there’s a faucet on a pole a few sites away that he uses to fill it and water everything. The soil at the site is relatively good, but he wonders if he should swing on through next time he comes to water with a little bucket of the good soil from his garden. He’s done that in years past.

“Got some good ones this year,” he mutters, as he pats the soil down atop his marigold seeds. They were always some of Ma’s favorite flowers, but then again, Ma was hard-pressed to find a flower she didn’t like. Her garden flourished every year.

( _ Ma,  _ Will says, standing by the window in his parents’ bedroom. He’s sixteen, and the wind pounds at the sides of the house; sparse snowflakes mix with dead leaves whipped every which way by the cold. The world outside is growing colder, autumn giving way to what looks like is going to be a long winter. But Will isn’t focused on the weather— he’s zeroed in on the barren patch of garden below. He looks over his shoulder, towards Ma, and says,  _ Come and look out the window with me. _

Ma is laying in bed. She has been for days, and he’s been taking care of her— bringing cups from the giant pot of soup, drawing her warm baths, taking her temperature, calling the doctor every few days. Her cough has been awful for months, but a visit to Pa’s brothers’ house by the shore last week brought her down with a bad case of pneumonia. If she was sick before, she’s even sicker now. She’s pale and thin, low on energy, always coughing or breathing unsteadily.

She’s still Ma, though. She’s always Ma.

_ Out the window?  _ she replies, and he nods.

_ Here, _ he says, crossing the small space between the window and the bed. He reaches both hands out for her, takes her gently under the arms.  _ I’ll help you. _

_ What’s in the window, darling?  _ she asks, as he helps her out of bed. She’s wrapped in several layers of clothes, including one of Pa’s old wool sweaters, and she leans all her weight against Will when she puts her socked feet on the ground. She stumbles just a little. He holds her upright.

_ I just wanna show you _ , Will replies. He guides her the rest of the way there, then stations her so she can see what he sees.  _ You see that empty spot in your garden? _

Ma nods, coughs, and tips her head onto his shoulder.  _ Mhm. I see it. _

_ I was thinking _ , Will says.  _ Come springtime. We can plant a hydrangea. You know that blue one you looked at last May? We oughta buy it, put it there. _

_ The blue hydrangea _ , she echoes. She fell in love with it at the garden store, but they didn’t have the money to buy a whole new bush last spring. Will works at Annie’s now— or he did, before Ma got sick. Once she’s better, he’ll go back and earn enough for them to get it.

_ It’ll look perfect _ , he tells her, rubbing her shoulder. Her whole body is cold, despite the fact that he’s done everything he can to keep the house as warm as possible. He sweats through his clothes.  _ The sunshine will be out, and you’ll get some fresh air, and I’ll help you. We’ll plant it together. _

Ma closes her eyes. She smiles a little.  _ Sunshine sounds swell. _

_ I know it does.  _ Will leans down, kisses her cheek.  _ It’ll be here soon, Ma. Winter won’t be so bad. _

Ma is quiet for a long time, leaning on him and looking out the window. When she speaks again, it’s after a few coughs, and a shaky, wet-sounding breath.  _ You’re a good boy, Junior. _

_ Love you, Ma. _

It’s the third to last day of her life.)

The breeze rustles the oak tree again. Will lets out a long breath, pulls his hand out of where it’s been stuck in the seed packet for the past minute or two. He spreads the rest of the marigold seeds, pours water over the top of everything, and wipes his dirty hands on his jeans.

“That oughta do it,” he murmurs.

He looks past his parents’ site, towards his grandparents, his aunt and his uncles. He plants for them, too, usually, but they have perennial things at their sites, which look like they’re coming along nicely, and don’t require much maintenance. He always does more for his parents. It’s the way it ought to be.

When he’s done planting, he sits in the grass for awhile— he’s not sure exactly how long, but the sun is warm and his parents are here and the oak tree stands tall above him. A better Catholic would pray in this moment, he thinks. But the only reason Will even still calls himself Catholic is because his parents would be heartbroken to hear him say otherwise.

It’s the family faith, and family is everything.

He checks his pocket watch for the time after awhile in the sun. It’s noon. He and Derek are meeting at one. He pats the top of his parents’ stone. “I’ll be back next week,” he tells them, which they know. He’s here every week. Hell or high water.

What they don’t know, and what he can’t say, is where he’s headed this afternoon. Sometimes he’ll tell them, give little minor life updates, like  _ I’m going to feed the ladies _ or  _ I have an early shift at Annie’s in the morning _ or  _ Suzanne and Rick invited me over for dinner _ , but he won’t— can’t— do that today.

The thought of his parents knowing about Derek is… too much to fathom.

He heads home with the weight of it on his shoulders, and by the time he finally pulls up his long, winding dirt driveway, he’s shaken the pit in his stomach at least for the moment. Some days when he gets home from the cemetery, he starts drinking, at hours way too early to be decent. He doesn’t today. He has other, more important things to do than wallow in grief all afternoon.

He hasn’t had a drink since the night of the kiss, actually. He’s vaguely proud of himself for it.

He heads to the barn to let the ladies out of the coop, check on the chicks in their incubator, and give his cows a nice pat on each of their heads. He’ll do his feeds and night chores when he gets home, but he’s not sure how long he’ll be out.

So he packs a lunch to walk through the woods to the pond. He puts it in the same basket he used for the date last weekend, Ma’s old picnic basket she’d fill up for a family afternoon at the pond or down by the sea. Sundays were always for family. Pa would work himself ragged all hours of all days of the week, but there was nothing on Sundays— just Mass in the mornings, then afternoons by themselves.

It was Will’s favorite day of the week.

On his way out back towards the trail, he stops in the garden and bends over to pick some of his late daffodils. He clusters them into a bouquet, ties them with a stem, and tucks them back under the basket flap.

(Will is twelve, and watching Pa bend over in the grass. They’re at the edge of the field where the cows roam, finishing up chores for the day. They wear matching overalls— not on purpose, but because it’s the best way to dress to work in the barn. Pa’s have a sewn-in patch on the knee where Ma had to fix them up last year from wear and tear, and Will’s are covered in grass stains.

_ What’cha doing, Pa?  _ Will asks, as he watches him. Pa is picking a handful of wildflowers, daisies and buttercups and violets, treating them gingerly as he pulls them from the ground.

_ Bringing these in for your ma _ , he replies, then straightens up and smiles at the bouquet in his hands. It looks small, by comparison— like Will, Pa has big hands, and calloused ones at that. Years on ships will do that to you.  _ She’ll like em’, don’tcha think? _

_ Yeah, she’ll like em’.  _ Pa is always giving Ma flowers. It puts the biggest smile on her face.

_ You’ve always gotta treat a lady right _ , Pa tells him, as they walk back up to the house from the barn.  _ Get her flowers, always get the door for her, take her out when you can. Be a gentleman, through and through. That’s how you win her heart. _

Will catalogues this advice, saves it for later. He’ll need it one day, he figures. Once girls start noticing him. Once he starts noticing them back.

He’s waiting on the second part, and can’t figure out why it hasn’t come yet.

_ Thanks, Pa. _

_ Sure thing, Junior. _ )

It’s a ten-minute walk through the woods to the pond, but that’s only if you take it slow. Today, Will makes it there in about seven, if his pocket watch is trusty— which it is. There’s no Derek yet, so he spreads out the picnic blanket by the water, sits, and waits.

Derek drives an odd car, but then again, everything about him is a little odd. He gets up to greet him when he pulls up the dirt path, in the brown thing with sleek edges and shining paint.

“Hey, handsome,” Derek calls, all smiles. He’s wearing a denim jacket, and when Will looks at him in the sunshine, he thinks he’s never seen something more beautiful.

“Hi,” he says, half mesmerized.

Derek starts across the grass toward him. “I have an update for you,” he says.

“An update,” Will echoes, as they meet in the middle. The gentle kiss hello they share sends a flock of butterflies into his stomach. “What kind?”

“I asked Eric if he can look for work for me,” Derek replies. “Or, keep his eye out, at least.”

“Oh!” Will smiles at him. “That’s good, Derek. I’m glad.” Over the past few days, they’ve been piecing together some semblance of a plan for him, what he can do while he’s stuck here. Will has no idea how long that might be, but… in the meantime, spending time with him is, well. It’s nice.

It’s very nice.

“I’ve missed you,” Derek says. His eyes are the color of the murky sea, but twice as warm, and much more inviting. “How was your morning?”

“It was nice,” Will replies, then holds his hand out for him. As they start toward the spot where he left the blanket and the basket, he almost tells him where he went this morning— but it makes his stomach knot, and he decides he’s not quite ready for that conversation. He settles for the not-untrue, “I did some planting.”

“Some planting!” Derek echoes. His voice is loud, and Will doesn’t care. This pond is their safe haven. “Do you garden?”

“Quite a bit.” Will nods and kneels on the blanket, guiding Derek down with him. “Speaking of which…” He digs into the basket, pulls out the daffodils, and presses them into his hands. “Happy Sunday.”

Derek beams at the yellow blossoms. “Will Poindexter, you are one seriously romantic asshole, you know that?”

Will rolls his eyes, like that’ll mask the fact that he knows full well he’s blushing. “Oh, quit kissing up.”

“I’m not!” Derek cries. He sits cross-legged on the blanket, then leans to press a kiss to Will’s cheek. “I just think it’s really nice.”

Will feels his blush intensify. He’s quiet for a second, then shifts so he’s sitting across from him. “Do, uh…” he starts, because he’s curious. “In 2021, is it not commonplace for a man to get flowers for the person he’s going with?”

“Not really,” Derek replies. “I mean,  _ some _ times. Valentine’s Day and stuff. I got my high school girlfriend flowers for our prom.” He pauses, gazes at the daffodils, and then shrugs with a gentle smile. “But, uh… no one has ever given me flowers before.”

“Do you like it?” Will asks, almost a little thrown by that knowledge. Derek has never gotten flowers? “I can stop.”

“Oh, no— no, no, babe,” Derek says, and that word puts the butterflies right back in Will’s system.  _ Babe.  _ He’s only ever heard it in songs. “I  _ love _ it.”

Will smiles at him. “Do you.”

“I do,” he says, and he’s earnest and smiling and so  _ beautiful _ . How is he Will’s, even if only for a little while? “So much.”

“I wasn’t sure if it made you feel, uh…” Will pauses. “Less of a man.” Because after all, he’s only ever heard of men doing it for women. He has no idea what a man is  _ really _ supposed to do for another man.

“Never,” Derek says, brushing the possibility off. “I’m comfortable in my masculinity. And men can love flowers just the same as women can. It’s just nature.”

Will has never thought of it this way before. “That’s true.”

“Did you…” Derek squints. “Think of me as less of a man?”

“Not at all,” he replies. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Well, I love them.” Derek sets them into his lap, and Will reaches into the basket as he adds, “Actually, I’d love to get some tattoos of flowers.”

Will’s mouth goes dry. “Tattoos?”

“Ch’yeah,” Derek replies. “I love tattoos. Have you seen the one on my arm?”

“I saw it once at work,” Will manages, and even though he’s decided not to care if he blushes around Derek, this would be a distinctly bad time to blush. Thinking about that tattoo, which imprinted itself on his brain the one day he saw it across the bar counter at Annie’s, is entirely too much to handle right now. Maybe another time, they can talk about Derek’s affinity for ink— but not today. Will can’t think too much into it today. “I packed us lunch,” he tells him, pulling the sandwiches out of the basket. “It’s not much, just… chicken salad, some melon from the market, a few cookies.” He pulls out the food items, wrapped in paper or sealed in glass jars, as he names them. “The sandwich bread is fresh.”

Derek’s eyes widen. “You baked the bread?”

“Yes,” he replies. “Early, just this morning. My ma always did. It’s cheaper and easier than buying.”

“You’re a regular Eric Bittle.”

He laughs, just a little, and shakes his head. “No one’s quite like him.” He passes Derek one of the sandwiches, then says, “I thought we could eat, and… spend the afternoon. Talk about your plan.”

Derek unwraps the paper. “Chill.”

“We could sit in the sun,” Will adds. “You could write.”

Derek swoons a little. “That sounds  _ magical _ , babe.”

Will smiles at him across the blanket. He could get used to being called that.

*

That’s just what they do. With food in their systems after lunch, they recline on the blanket— talking some, but just sitting too, enjoying the peaceful quiet of each other’s company and the temperate sunshine from the clear sky above. The family of ducks is out on the pond, and the trees rustle in the gentle breeze, surrounding and enclosing them, giving them this space safe from the rest of the world.

Eventually, Derek goes to get his notebook, and they wind up sitting back-to-back while he writes in it. Will sits upright, and Derek presses right up against him, their shoulders leaning together. He can hear the scratch of Derek’s pencil on his paper. He closes his eyes and rests while Derek goes to town.

“I wrote you a poem,” Derek remarks, after an indeterminate period of sitting quietly.

Will opens his eyes. Derek’s actual head is close to his, but he’s facing opposite from him, so he can’t see his face. “Just now?”

“No. Right now I’m drawing.” There’s the sound of tearing paper, and then he passes a blue sheet of paper backwards. “I wrote this two days ago.”

Will takes the page and looks down at it.

_ peony _

_ closed off from the world _

_ wound in tight on itself _

_ and sheltered by stubborn leaves  _

_ the budding peony opens reluctantly _

_ seldom coaxes the guarded flower to bloom _

_ only unfurling its bound petals  _

_ in the sun brought on by april _

_ to those with gentle patience _

_ letting its posture relax low _

_ flushed and pink, _

_ bashful _

“This is beautiful, Derek,” he says, in barely much more than a whisper.

Derek hums. “I have a really good muse.”

Will stares at the page for a moment more. Even Derek’s  _ handwriting _ is breathtaking. His heart flutters at the words, at the knowledge that they’re for him. “I’m your muse?”

“Ch’yeah.” Derek’s back rubs against his, and he tips his head backwards onto his shoulder. “I knew it weeks ago.”

Will tucks the poem carefully into the pocket of his jeans, right with his pocket watch. “Is that why you started tipping me with poetry?”

“Well… I  _ guess _ .” Derek’s curls brush at Will’s cheek. “But that was more to try and win you over.”

Will chuckles. He mirrors Derek, and leans his own head against the side of his neck, pressing a kiss near his stubbly jawline.

For a minute, they’re quiet. Then Derek asks, “Did it work?”

Will bites back his laugh. “I think so.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“I think there’s a chance.”

There’s a grin in Derek’s voice. “Probably a pretty minor one.”

“Mm.” Will smiles at the sky. “Yeah.”

“We’ll see, I guess.”

Will reaches behind him, then feels around half-blindly until he finds Derek’s arm. Derek guides him to the right spot to take his hand, and then he pulls their hands up over his shoulder so he can kiss the back of Derek’s palm.

He smiles while he does it, then tells him, “We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want more love finds you? I posted a [5+1 fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233360?view_full_work=true) about Good Haven!Dex's first kisses.
> 
> My friends, I can say with certainty now that you're getting a weekly update schedule. New chapters on this fic will drop on Wednesdays from this point forward!  
> Thank you so much for reading, and stay healthy and safe. Till next Wednesday. Feel free to shout at me in the comment section, and [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


	21. him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear, dear friends, I don't usually do a long note at the start of a chapter, but: I have a few things to say. The first thing is that I'm sorry this chapter is coming at you late. I'll still update on Wednesdays, but the simplest explanation for my lateness this week is that this chapter... is a doozie. As in, it's long. That's just because there's a lot in here. It's one of my very favorite chapters, and I'm happy I waited to post it, because I was making it its best for you all.
> 
> Second, and slightly more specific— Will and Derek discuss their parental situations in this chapter in quite some detail. I want to address this only because Derek talks about a home life here that is far from ideal. I'm not a big fan of the "Nursey has absentee parents" headcanon for a number of reasons, and I want to say that in all my fic set in the canon universe, Nursey's parents aren't what they are in this AU. The reason his familial situation is strained in this story is because it has to be, for the story to work correctly. But I don't subscribe to the same Nurse-family model in other fic I write.
> 
> One more thing; I need to give a content warning for alcoholism. It's not on-page, but it's discussed as something that happened in the past and continues to happen off-screen.
> 
> Okay, I think that does it for now. I hope you enjoy this chapter!!! Like I said, I'm very fond of it.

_ May 24th, 1961 _

_ Day 47 In Good Haven _

“Derek!” Eric says, at dinnertime, three days later. “I have good news.”

“Chill!” Derek replies, making his way into the kitchen. It smells amazing— there’s a rhubarb pie in the oven. “What’s up?”

Eric looks excited; he flashes a smile. “I have a job proposition for you.”

*

_ May 25th, 1961 _

_ Day 48 In Good Haven _

“So he offered me twenty dollars a week to paint the inn.”

“Inside or outside?” Will’s voice is kind of grainy through the phone, but Derek has ascertained that that’s just how phone calls in 1961 sound.

“Both,” he replies, leaning back in the desk chair. He’s stationed in his yellow room at Eric’s, rotary phone to his ear. This room, the kitchen, and the parlor are the only three rooms in the house with an actual landline inside. He likes to think it’s luck, because it means he can talk to Will, at the strategic times when he knows Eric isn’t around to listen in. “He says I can help him pick the colors, because he ‘trusts my artistic judgement’.”

Will laughs. “So do you think you want to do it?”

“Oh— ch’yeah, for sure,” he says. “I already told him yes.”

“Oh,  _ good _ ; that’s swell,” Will says. “I’m glad.”

“He says I can start getting colors tomorrow, if I want to,” Derek adds. Their conversation last night over dinner solidified the plan, and Derek has never been more excited to paint a building in his life. It’s actually the first  _ whole _ building he’ll have ever painted, but he painted the walls in his apartment last year, and the Haus got a new paint job that he helped with a little during preseason his junior year.

It’s work, and that’s  _ vitally _ important right now, as it turns out. He and Will have pieced together a plan.

“Do you have painting clothes?” Will asks.

Derek furrows his brow. “Painting clothes?”

“You know… clothes to paint in?” He pauses. “I can’t imagine you brought that kind of thing on vacation.”

Derek glances over his shoulder towards the dresser, which contains most of his wardrobe right now. Will is kind of correct— he packed some tank-tops, t-shirts, long pants, his jean jacket… but nothing he’d really care to ruin with paint stains, exactly. “Well, like… I think I can probably buy some.”

“No need,” Will says, all business. “My attic… I have clothes; I’m sure some would fit you.”

“Oh. Will— babe.” He leans forward on the desk. “Thank you. Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m positive,” Will says. “It’s… overalls and such, plain shirts. Do you have good working shoes?”

Derek glances at his feet. The shoes he packed so many weeks ago— it feels like another lifetime ago— include his Birkenstocks, which are somewhere in the dresser, a pair of high-topped green dress shoes, and running shoes, plus the blue Vans on his feet. He didn’t think he’d need much more. “I have sneakers,” he offers.

“Well, you can borrow my spare work boots if you need.”

“Thank you,” he tells him, holding the receiver close. “You’re very thoughtful.”

“Of course,” Will says, with a tone that says it should be obvious that he’s offering his help. “You’ve gotta have what you need.”

Derek grins into the phone. “What a gentleman,” he muses, and Will laughs.

These are practical solutions to a very non-practical problem. Will is methodical. He makes plans. He fixes things. He’s told Derek many times that he’s determined to help him.

And also they’re dating. Derek still has to wrap his head around that one.

The phone calls are an almost daily thing, on the days they don’t see each other— Will has this morning off; he’s not going into Annie’s until the afternoon shift. Though they just got on the line, Derek imagines this call will last awhile. They stayed on for two hours yesterday morning before he had to get going.

“Derek, uh,” Will says suddenly, “I was thinking.”

“You were thinking,” Derek echoes.

“Yes.” He pauses. “I… I wanted to ask you, uh. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Ask and ye shall receive.”

Derek hears him chuckle, then he takes a deep breath. “Would you, uh… would you like to come over for dinner?” There’s a beat, then he adds, “To my house, that is.”

Derek beams. “Your house!”

“Yes.”

“For real?”

“Yes, for real.”

“I would  _ love _ that.”

“Would you?”

“ _ Yes _ .” The thought of Will bringing him into his home— a place he’s only heard about, but knows must be so personal for him— it just. Wow. It softens his already-charmed heart. “Of course. I’d be honored.”

Will chuckles again. “Well, it’s just dinner,” he says, gently. “Not an awards banquet.”

“It’s an honor either way.” Derek wonders if he’s blushing on the other end. “You really want me over your house?”

“Well, yeah, Derek,” Will says, “of course I do.”

Derek puts a hand to his heart. “He really  _ does _ like me.”

Will laughs. “So… I have to work late this Saturday, but we can spend Sunday at the pond. What are you doing next Saturday? The third, that is.”

“Coincidentally, I’m going to dinner at a very lovely man’s house.” Oh God, he is  _ so _ excited. What’s he going to wear? He might have to go clothes shopping even  _ if _ Will has painting clothes for him.

“Okay.” There’s a smile in Will’s voice. “It won’t interfere with painting?”

“Not at all.” And if it does, he’ll make up an excuse for Eric.

Will asks, “What do you like to eat?”

“I eat everything,” he replies, which is true. He likes his almond milk and vegan sandwiches, but they don’t have those things here, and it’s not like he doesn’t  _ like _ non-vegan food. “Except, like, I dunno. I’m not the biggest fan of olives.”

“No, I mean— be more specific,” Will urges. “Tell me something you like to eat.”

“ _ Will _ . You’re the host,” he replies. “I want to have something you like to make.”

“But—”

“Plus, the fact that you want to cook for me in the first place? Makes me mega fucking soft.”

Will lets off a little sigh. He’s quiet for a few seconds then asks, “Well… what do you eat at home?”

“ _ Dexy _ . I’m serious. In fact, I don’t even want to know.” Derek leans on his elbow, twirls the phone cord around his finger. “Surprise me.”

“But what if I cook something that you don’t like?” Will protests.

“You’d be hard pressed to do that.”

“ _ Derek _ .”

“ _ William _ .”

Derek swears he can  _ hear _ his eyeroll through the phone. After a long silence, he mutters, “Okay,” and then, “Well, how do you feel about red meat? Like roast?”

“I feel great about that.”

“Okay.” Will pauses. “And potatoes?”

“Potatoes are exceptional in any form—” He puts the receiver close to his mouth. “— but  _ stop spoiling the meal _ !”

Will laughs. Derek is getting used to the sound of him laughing. “Okay, okay. Thank you. That’s helpful,” he says. “And I’m all done now.”

“Good,” Derek says, then can’t help it; he smiles like a dweeb. “I’m excited.”

“So am I,” Will replies. “I’ll pick you up, okay? We can arrange a discreet meeting point.”

“Okay,” he says. “Should I plan to bring anything?”

“No,” Will says. “Just yourself.”

“Is that a  _ hard _ no or a soft no?”

“What’s the difference?”

“A hard no implies you’re serious, but a soft no is, like, you say no but you mean yes.”

Will is quiet for a few seconds, like he’s processing this and trying to figure out if it’s 2021 slang or just Derek slang (it’s both). Then he says, “It’s a hard no.”

“Okay.”

“So it’s a date?”

Derek beams. He wishes he could kiss him right now. “It’s a date.”

Well, whatever. He’ll kiss him soon enough.

*

_ June 2nd, 1961 _

_ Day 56 In Good Haven _

The day before dinner, everything is ready.

Will did his shopping yesterday, in anticipation of not wanting to go out after his diner shift this morning. When he gets home from it, he does his barn chores and preps as much of the meal as he can— he’s making Ma’s roast, he decides, the good one that Pa always got fired up about. It’s best with dried herbs, which he still has a little of from last summer. The meat is in the fridge, and the potatoes are boiled, and the peas are shelled.

Will is setting the table in his sunny kitchen when his eyes fall on the cabinet above the counter.

His stomach turns a little.

He’s forgotten something.

It’s not that it’s a  _ necessary _ step for having someone over for dinner. He doesn’t have company often— the last person over his house was most definitely Kenny, and come to think of it, Kenny probably makes up the past five or ten times there’s been someone over here. But Derek is new territory. Derek is seeing his home for the first time.

He kind of cares what his impression is of it.

Will walks to the cabinet, opens it up, and stares down the liquor inside.

He should get rid of this.

He should get rid of all of it, actually. He doesn’t want Derek to think he’s a drunk.

Because he isn’t one, he tells himself, as he makes his way up the stairs. Whiskey takes the edge off, but he’s  _ not _ a drunk. He’s never mean, or dangerous, or reckless. It just calms him down. It clouds the grief. It helps him forget.

There are five bottles in the house, and he knows where they all are. One is in his bedroom, tucked next to a glass at the bottom of the closet. The second is up in the top shelf in Pa’s study. A third, with the least left in it, is under the record player in the living room.

He sets them down by the sink; the glass and amber liquid looks almost pretty in the light. From the actual liquor cabinet, he pulls down the fourth bottle, then starts to reach for a fifth, smaller bottle, tucked way into the back with just a swallow or two left in the bottom.

Then he decides against it, pushing the odd one out way into the corner. It’s the bottle his uncles toasted with at Pa’s funeral. He’s depleted some of it over the years— it’s what he pulled out when he came home to an empty house for the first time, after Ma’s service— but he’s never had it in him to finish the whole thing.

He walks to the sink and sets the fourth bottle down among the other three. He stares at them for a second, then reaches for one and takes a long breath.

He feels sick. It’s now or never.

“Ma… Pa…” he says. “I… I have to ask you something.” The house meets him with empty, sunny quiet. It seems to breathe with the day, beams shifting, floorboards creaking. He wants to know they’re listening. “Er— really, I think I oughta tell you something.”

He pulls the top off the first whiskey bottle. The smell is strong and almost acrid, so closely associated with bad memories that it worsens his stomachache. He can close his eyes, inhale, and have this smell alone take him right back to some of the worst nights of his life. “I… I’m. I’m having someone over. Here. At home.” He pauses. “I’m having someone over, and… and it’s someone I’m going with.” He exhales, but it does nothing for the tension in his shoulders.

“And it’s… I mean, I don’t know how to say.” His heart thumps in his chest. Does he really want to say this out loud?

Does he have a choice, if he wants to bring Derek into his home?

“I guess I’ve just gotta.”

He tips the whiskey bottle over and starts to dump it into the sink.

“I’m bringing this person under your roof, and— and, it’s— it’s—” He chokes on his words, almost; his hand shakes as he watches the whiskey swirl around the drain. “He’s— another man.”

The second he’s said it, he wishes he could take it back. He winces, waits for the house to collapse on him.

It doesn’t. It meets him with its indifferent silence.

“And I’m sorry— I’m sorry I’ve never told you,” he says, “I’m sorry for bringing that into your home— I can’t say how long I’ve known, but I’m— I’m just sorry, I’m really, really sorry, and—” The whiskey comes faster now. He tips the bottle upside down, and it glugs out of the neck. Let it pour. He doesn’t want it in this house anymore. “And I don’t know if that means maybe you’re angry, or that you don’t love me—” His words come faster now, an explanation rushed out of him, as if it’ll help. As if it’ll change the terrifying truth he’s just said out loud. “But I love you, both of you, always will— and I know it’s sinful; I know it’s not okay, but—” He stops. The whiskey bottle is empty. “Oh, what am I doing.”

He watches the rest of the stuff disappear into the sink. The other three bottles are lined up and waiting for him. His whole sink smells like the stuff now. And his parents— now they  _ know _ — he’s going to be ill.

But he’s said it now. He can’t take it back. If they’re here with him, they know, and that’s that.

“Ma… Pa… I’m so sorry.” He takes the top off of the second bottle. “I’m sorry I never told you. I’m sorry I’m doing this now.” Pouring is easier this time. It’s cathartic, almost. It feels good to watch it go. “I just… well, maybe I ought ask; I… d’ya think, if you want… if you’re, ah— if you’re okay with this— if you’re okay with me— couldja send me a sign?”

He looks over his shoulder while he pours, darts his eyes around the ground floor, like all the furniture and photographs know how ridiculous this sounds.

“I know— I know it’s a lot to ask,” he says, “and you don’t have to, but— if you send me a sign that you don’t want me to bring him here, I won’t. And if you send me a sign that you’re alright with it, I… that’ll help me understand what you’re thinking.” He sighs. He feels how ridiculous he sounds. But he can’t turn back on this now. He’s spilling his soul to them, and he needs them to hear him.

He’s never needed them to hear him more.

“I need something,” he says, “to know how you feel. Anything.”

He finishes off the second pour. His hands are still shaking. The kitchen reeks of liquor, and the sun is in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he tells them, and then he dumps the other two bottles in silence.

*

_ June 3rd, 1961 _

_ Day 57 In Good Haven _

Saturday night takes  _ forever _ to arrive.

Derek spends the day writing, mostly because he’s been putting tape up and painting all over the inn the whole rest of the week. He’s starting with the interior rooms, then moving to the outside once all of it is done. His entire Thursday and Friday were dedicated to repainting the parlor in this beautiful shade of pale apricot. Eric fawned over it for literal hours.

But today… today Eric says he doesn’t have to work, so he’s just waiting. He’s having dinner at Will’s tonight, and he is  _ so _ ready for it. When the time finally comes, Derek feels like he’s been waiting so long he may have made his way back into 2021.

He’s meeting Will on the corner by the water tower, where he picked him up for their first date. It takes him about three separate tries to decide what he wants to wear. He finally settles on a green polo the color of his beloved hat, the shoes that he packed specifically to match it, brown pants, his jean jacket, the works. It’s not cold out, but he has no idea what the temperature will be in Will’s house.

He looks at himself in the mirror in the bathroom. He fixes his hair, like, four times. He puts on his favorite lotion, so he smells good.

It’s okay. He’s chill. He’s totally not freaking out.

He’s just. He’s  _ really really fucking excited _ right now.

On the way out of the inn, Eric waves. “Going out to dinner?”

“Ch’yeah.” Derek hangs on the door. He tingles, almost, with the anticipation of seeing Will. It’s only been two days since he last saw him, and phone calls have taken place since then, but he’s super into him, alright? Let him live. “I’m meeting someone,” he adds, because he can’t help himself.

Eric’s eyebrows shoot up, and he smiles. “A lady?”

Derek shrugs. “Use your imagination,” he replies, and then he’s out the door.

Eric is probably going to gossip to his mama about this, but, like, whatever. He knows Eric suspects nothing, given the fact that he’s asked him if he has a girl back at home. If Eric wants to believe he’s been out canoodling with one of the girls in Good Haven, it’s safer than if he had an inkling about Will.

The red truck is parked right where Will said it would be. Will opens the passenger side door for him, and Derek beams at him. He’s in one of his plaid button-downs, with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His cheeks are pink already. “Hey,” Derek whispers, as Will slides into the driver’s side.

“Hi,” Will hums. Derek winks at him, and they’re off.

At first, Will drives in the same direction as if they’re heading to the pond. But he takes a left turn at the fork where it’s normally a right, and all of a sudden they’re on a dirt road, which feels hilariously back-woods farm boy, but also kind of cool. It’s flanked on both sides by conifer trees, and Will drives up a gradual hill before he turns right for a driveway.

The driveway moves with the land, unpaved like the road, winding around trees and climbing a slightly steep hill. “I feel like this driveway must be treacherous in the winter,” Derek says.

Will snorts, shakes his head. “It’s not so bad,” he replies. “Just gotta stay on top of it.”

“New York doesn’t know how to act if it snows,” he tells him. “I swear— no cap, I’ve seen the whole city shut down over four inches.”

Will looks like he’s about to laugh. “How does anyone get anything done?” he asks. “Present company included?”

“Hey, I went to school up here!” Derek protests. “I’m not your typical New Yorker.”

“You are  _ exactly _ my typical New Yorker,” Will replies.

Derek feigns offense. “What is  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

Will is maybe smirking. It’s a very, very good look on him. “I’ll let you decide,” he says, and Derek grabs his hand to plant a kiss on his palm.

Then they turn a corner, and there’s a huge clearing. It’s several acres, he thinks, of green grass apart from the forest, and there are two buildings— a big red barn across from a white farmhouse. It has a wrap-around porch and is surrounded by garden, and there’s a path between it and the barn that looks well-trod. Behind the barn, there’s a fenced area, and there’s a sturdy-looking maple tree in the center of the lawn with a swing hanging from it. There’s what looks like a field for growing out towards the backyard.

“Yo!” Derek cries, taking it in. “This is, like, a whole farm!”

“Well, you can’t exactly have half a farm,” Will says.

“I didn’t take you for a real farmer, Dexy,” he says. The thought of Will working here, in the sun “Do you wear a straw hat? Do you sell eggs?”

“No and yes, in that order,” Will replies. “But also, what’s a ‘real’ farmer?”

“I dunno…” Derek shrugs as Will puts the truck in park. “Like, yee-haw, partner, ‘til the cows come home.”

“That’s a cowboy.”

“Same difference.”

“Well…” Will gets out the driver’s side. “No.”

Derek is just going to open his own door, but Will makes his way around the front remarkably quickly, so he’s pulling the door open for him before he gets the chance. He steps down and surveys the scene— it’s early evening, not really close to sunset yet, and the air is full of peaceful sound— birds singing, the surrounding forest rustling in the breeze, and— wait— is that moo-ing?

Derek squints past the barn, into the fenced field, as Will closes up the truck. When he lays his eyes on three huge animals, he has to prevent himself from literally yelling. “ _ Yo _ !”

Will turns around. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“You have  _ cows _ !” Derek cries. They’re far off in the field, but they’re  _ definitely _ cows. He can’t remember the last time he even saw cows in person. Two of them are brown and white, and the other is black, a little bigger than the others.

“I do,” Will says, walking up next to him. “I have two cows, one bull, and… well, about a dozen hens, plus my chicks. I’d like to have sheep again, but it’s been a few years.”

Derek marvels at the scene. It’s so pastoral that it doesn’t seem real. “Can I go over there?”

“Of course,” Will says, then takes his hand and leads him across the lawn.

They reach the end of the fence, and Derek hangs over it, watching the cows. One of them is eating grass, and another is just kind of chilling. The black one has horns; it must be the bull.

Is this real life? Will just has  _ cows _ chilling in his backyard.

“That is  _ so  _ cool,” Derek mutters.

“Do you want me to call them?” Will asks.

He raises an eyebrow. “Call them?”

“I can call them over,” he says, and then cups one hand around his mouth and makes some weird half-whistling half-clicking noise. It gets the attention of all three animals right away, and they make their slow way across the field toward the fence. It only occurs to Derek that they’re  _ huge _ and kind of terrifying when they’ve reached them.

Will is completely unafraid. “Hey, El,” he says to one of the brown ones, patting it on the nose. “Missed me?”

Derek is frozen in place. The cow’s face is literally half a foot from him. It smells kind of bad, but then again, it’s a  _ cow _ . “How are you not scared it’ll bite you?”

“She won’t bite,” Will laughs, ruffling the fur near its ears. “She’s friendly. She and her sister. Go on; you can pet ‘er. It’s okay.”

Derek debates it, then shakes his head. Will might have a rapport with these things, but he is a good New York City boy who does not entrust his fingers to the mercy of farm animals. “It’s alright,” he says. “It looks like they love you, though.”

Will shrugs. He smiles at the animal. “I feed em’.”

He proceeds to greet all three of them, like the actual cow whisperer, then turns to Derek with this soft smile he isn’t sure he’s ever seen before. He can tell, even in this small interaction, that his animals are important to him.

It doesn’t look like anyone else lives here— not that he thought anyone did, but it’s a huge property for one person. These cows— and whatever else is in the barn— must be as close to company as he gets. Like a fucking Disney Princess, who sings to field mice.

Then again, is Derek any different, with his empty studio apartment, feeling so alone in a city of millions?

“Do you want to see the barn?” Will asks, and, uh,  _ yeah.  _ He does.

The barn smells like hay and farm, like the cows do, and there’s a whole entire chicken coop lined with wire and with half-doors that open to the outside. There’s a tiny incubator in the corner of the coop, where Will shows him the little cluster of baby chicks under warm light, and Will steps over the wire to fish through the cubbies in the coop and pull out a smooth blue egg.

“They’re always laying,” he explains, placing it into Derek’s hands. It’s still warm.

“Wow.” Derek almost doesn’t trust himself to carry an egg and not break it, but Will gave it to him, and he feels like there’s something special about it for that reason. “Chill.”

There’s also a cat living in the rafters. The  _ mew _ from the ceiling scares Derek half to death, and while he’s recovering from literally almost falling over in shock, Will talks to the thing. It’s black except for a few patches of white fur at its paws and nose. “It’s okay, Mittens,” Will says. The cat eyes him suspiciously, slinking across a beam by the hayloft. “It’s just me. And this is Derek.”

Derek nods at the cat. “‘Sup, kitty.”

Mittens perches on the beam for a moment more, then makes her graceful way down to the floor. “She’s a barn cat,” Will tells Derek. “I think she hates me, but I give her tuna fish, and she seems to like that.”

Derek kneels as Mittens approaches him. He holds out a hand. He loves cats, to be honest, and dogs too, but his landlord says no pets. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Will says, still standing upright behind him. “She’s never let me pet her.”

Mittens looks at Derek’s hand for a few seconds, and just as it looks like she’s about to change her mind and walk away, she steps forward and rubs her head against his palm.

Derek gasps. Audibly. He scratches behind Mittens’ ears, and she starts purring. “Did I just charm your barn cat who hates you?”

“I’ll be,” Will says. “I think you did.”

Derek pats her for a moment more. She lets him rub her arched back, and she purrs all the while. She’s cute, if a little skinny. “So she just lives in here rent free?”

Will laughs. “Rent free,” he echoes. “I guess so.”

Then the rooster in the chicken coop yells obnoxiously, which Mittens apparently doesn’t like, because she slinks off and back up to her hayloft. Will offers Derek his hand as he straightens again. “Up to the house?” he asks. “I’ll start on dinner.”

Derek smiles. He takes his hand. “Okay.”

They leave the barn and the host of animal companions behind (definitely Disney Princess), trodding up the well-worn path towards the big white house. Its windows are mostly dark, and there’s a beautiful cylindrical room right up towards what looks like the attic. It has so much window space; it must have great natural light.

“So you live here all by yourself?” Derek asks.

“Yes.” Will pauses. “My great-grandfather bought this house in 1888 and fixed it up. It was in rough shape. It’s been in my family ever since. I was born and raised here.”

“You were born  _ in  _ this house?”

“Yeah.” A smile crosses Will’s face that’s almost fond. “The way it goes, it was the biggest snowstorm of the season, and Ma couldn’t get to a hospital. The doctor wouldn’t come over, either. She said I wanted out so bad that I wouldn’t wait ‘til the storm cleared.”

Derek laughs. It’s the most old-timey birth story he’s ever heard, and somehow seems to suit Will perfectly. “Wow. That’s wild.”

“It was right at Christmas, too,” Will says. “Coldest winter in years.”

Derek looks sideways at him. “Wait, you were born on Christmas?”

“No, but close to,” he says. “December 10th.”

“Ah.” Derek nods sagely. “A Sagittarius.”

“A what?”

“Oh, your zodiac sign?” he says. “According to the stars, your birthday says something about your personality.”

“So what does Sagaritius mean?”

“Sagittarius.”

“Sagittarius.”

“It means…” Derek pauses. “Well, now that you say it, I’m kinda not convinced. Sagittarius are supposed to be extroverted and, like, funny.”

Will raises his eyebrows, but there’s not an ounce of actual offense on his face. “Oh. I see. So you’re saying I’m unfunny.”

“Look, I don’t know. Consult the stars.”

Will snorts. “When’s your birthday?”

“February 14th,” he says. “I’m an Aquarius.”

As they walk up the front steps onto the porch, Will puts the pieces together, right on schedule. “Your birthday is Saint Valentine’s Day?”

Derek grins. He’s incapable of sharing his birthday without someone making this observation, but he kind of loves that his birthday is when it is, so, like, whatever. “Convenient, huh?”

Will reaches into his pocket, pulls out a key, and slides it into the front door. “Oh, you keep your house locked,” Derek chirps. “To make sure the cows don’t come in and steal your food?”

Will rolls his eyes and pushes the door open. Derek follows him in, and he flicks on a light in what turns out to be a small foyer. There’s a coat rack to his left, with a few pairs of shoes— mostly boots— on the ground below it, and a thick plaid jacket hangs on its furthest hook. “Can I get your jacket?” Will asks.

“Oh.” Derek looks up at him, then shrugs off his jean jacket. It’s warm enough in here. “Thank you.”

Will hangs it on the rack and steps forward. There’s a narrow entryway that opens up to what must be the rest of the house, and he leads the way through it; Derek follows. There’s something so exciting about this, something almost intimate.

“So… this is it,” Will says, as the hallway ends, and Derek takes it in.

Like the barn, the house is held up by old beams, dark wood that seems to bend and shift with the rooms. The floor is wood, too, and worn-down, scuffed and sunk in, implication of hundreds of footfalls. To his right is a kitchen area, with simple appliances and four chairs at a small wood table set for two. There’s a door in the back of the kitchen that opens to what looks like a big pantry closet, and the late-afternoon sunshine filters in through the windows by the sink.

On the left is a living room, where a huge old radio is propped against the wall next to the hearth. An overstuffed brown couch sits across from it, with a coffee table and a few armchairs to boot. A huge, fraying blue carpet sits beneath the furniture there, and there are  _ dozens _ of pictures on the walls. A staircase starts between the two rooms, ascends to a second level that’s out of sight.

It’s one of the most well-loved homes he thinks he’s ever seen.

“I was thinking,” Will is saying, still standing a little behind him as he looks around. “I’ll get a start on dinner, then I can show you around. You don’t mind waiting, do you?”

Derek can’t help it. He leans to kiss his cheek. “Not at all.”

*

He sits in the kitchen while Will starts on the meal. He puts a big roast in the oven, garnished with herbs and pepper (thank God he’s seasoning something), and stands over a pot of potatoes with a hand mixer for awhile, telling Derek other house stories. There’s something to look at everywhere— the place is so warm, so clearly imprinted with love.

It’s so  _ big,  _ though. To think he lives here all alone.

“Now all that’s left is to wait,” Will says eventually, crossing to the table and resting his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “It’ll be ready in about thirty minutes. And in the meantime… I’ll show you around?”

Derek nods. He stands to his eye level. “That sounds perfect.”

He points out the various features of the first floor, notes that his bedroom is upstairs. Derek was right— it is a pantry at the far side of the kitchen, and he shows him the bathroom, which is small but smells vaguely like pine needles. In the hall from the bathroom back to the living room, there’s a series of pictures, all in black and white, of a few different families— Derek only gets a glance on the way by, but if Will said his family has really owned this house since 1888, does that mean they’re generational photos?

But by the time he’s finished that thought, he’s faced with another thought entirely. Because the living room is a tapestry of the times. There’s an upright record player against the back wall, and beneath it is a box of giant old records in perfect condition. “ _ Wow _ ,” Derek mutters. He feels like he’s in a museum. “Look at that record player.”

Will pats the cover of the thing. “Do you not have these anymore?”

“Only to be ironic and vintage.” Derek pauses. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw one.”

Will straightens the player on its stand. Derek looks at the pictures hung on the walls— a smiling couple with a baby, a group of young men with similar features standing by the barn from outside, and… a portrait of Will, he realizes, mounted on the wall by the radio. He crosses to it while Will is saying something about the actual radio, but his words blur as Derek looks up at the frame.

It’s… some kind of military photo?

In it, he’s in an old-fashioned sailor suit, in front of a plain background. He’s not exactly looking at the camera, more smiling into the distance.

Derek has to do a double take. Is that actually Will? It’s in black and white, but it has to be— he looks a little younger, but every feature is the same, from the ears that protrude from his hat the same way they do at the diner, to the freckles all over his face, to the light eyes. Derek even recognizes the dimple on the left side of his smile. “Wait…” he says. “Yo, wait, Will, are— are you in the military?”

“Ha.” Will exhales loudly, coming up next to him, and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s my pa.”

“Holy  _ shit _ .” Derek looks between Will and the picture. Spitting fucking image. They could be body doubles. Swap lives like in  _ Freaky Friday _ , and nothing would change. “You look just like him.”

Will turns away, and in the tight-lipped smile that crosses his face, Derek realizes, oh, fuck. “Thank you,” Will murmurs, folding his arms over his chest, but the words are far from a happy thanks.

What Eric told him— about Will’s dad. And all the people at the diner who say he looks like him—  _ fuck _ , Derek needs to think before he speaks sometimes. Will’s parents are gone. He can’t even imagine the grief that would come from such a simple observation, not to mention hearing the same aforementioned observation over and over from people in town and the time-traveling tourist you’re dating who you just invited over your house for the first time, God, you  _ fucking idiot _ , Derek—

“I’m sorry,” he says, but that can’t fix what’s transpired, exactly. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Why not?” Will is still smiling, but it’s the forced smile he’s seen him paste on for so many people at the diner. “You’re absolutely right. Everyone says that.”

“Well, I know,” Derek replies. “And that’s why I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.”

Will shakes his head. His smile dissolves into something a little more sad, but the closest he gets to revealing an actual, vulnerable emotion is shrugging. “No need to apologize.”

He thinks, for a second, that he might get more out of him than that. But Will doesn’t budge, at least not for the moment. He reaches to rest a hand on Derek’s arm and says, “Can I… get you something to drink? I don’t have alcohol in the house, but— I have water, of course, and there’s milk in the fridge—”

“Water sounds great, babe,” Derek says, with a tentative smile he hopes might help Will ease up again. He does, thank God, and he nods, brushing just a little with his hand on his arm.

“Perfect,” Will hums, then holds out his hand for Derek to take. “Follow me,” he says, and Derek isn’t sure he’s ever been more content to follow.

*

_ May 1946 _

Will likes it when the days get longer.

Longer days mean summertime is on its way, and that means a lot of things Will loves— more going on on the farm to help Pa with, days out of school to see Kenny and his other friends, warm, late nights spent outside on the porch, rides down to the seaside with his parents in Pa’s truck.

Today, though, it’s still spring. Will got out of school at three, like always, and he’s spent the Friday afternoon helping Pa out in the barn. The sunlight is turning mellow, and their chores are winding down; Will is gathering empty buckets in the corner as Pa sweeps up around the coop.

Will is used to this comfortable quiet, this cooperative daily work. Pa has been home for a year, after being away for four. Will missed him more than he even knows how to say.

“Well, what do you say, Junior?” From the pocket of his overalls, Pa pulls his pocket watch, a trusty old thing that’s been in the family for generations. “Think we oughta head inside? See what Ma’s cooking up?”

“Sure thing, Pa.” Will knows Ma is making his favorite dinner tonight; she’s surprising him, for the end of the long week. It’s roast with mashed potatoes and peas. Pa’s love for that meal is unmatched; she makes it on his birthday every year, and though his birthday is some months away, Will saw her put out the ingredients before school this morning.

Will is ten years old, and he doesn’t yet fully comprehend how exhausted his father is. With four years of war on his shoulders, he works on the docks at Bar Harbor all day, then upkeeps the farm in what seems sometimes like his every other waking moment. There’s no other option; there never has been, he must support his family. His work is unending, his memory of war unrelenting— but he is always, always smiling for Will.

They cross the yard in the late-day light, up to the house, where Will can smell the roast as soon as they get through the door. And so can Pa, apparently, because as he pulls off his work boots, the first thing out of his mouth is, “Well, I’ll  _ be _ ; what is that delicious smell?”

From the kitchen, Will hears Ma call, “Come on in and find out!”

Pa beckons for him as he strolls in that direction. “C’mon, Junior.”

Ma is at the stove, wearing her old green apron and touting a wooden spoon. Her strawberry hair is held back in a bandana that was Pa’s during the war. “Hi, boys,” she says. “How was the barn?”

“It was swell, Ma,” Will tells her. “The chicks got bigger while I was at school.”

Ma laughs, ruffling his hair as he reaches her side. “Oh, is that so?”

Pa, like a detective, seems to be on the dinner case. “Are you making roast, Ma?”

“Mm…” Ma taps the handle of her spoon against her other hand, like she’s still deciding, when the meal is in full swing right in front of them. “I thought since you had such a busy week, I’d make your favorite.”

“Oh,  _ Mar _ —” Pa lights up like a tree at Christmastime, and he lunges to sweep Ma right off her feet. Will laughs as he watches her plant a huge kiss on her cheek, and she lets out a sharp laugh, caught up in his enthusiastic embrace. “Say, well, you just made my whole week,” Pa tells her.

She pushes against his chest, a gentle smile on her face, as he sets her back down on her level feet. “Now, Junior,” she says, looking Will’s way, “you tell your father to behave.”

Will laughs and play-jostles Pa’s arm. “Yeah, Pa, behave!”

“Aw, c’mere.” Pa kneels and pulls him into what effectively becomes a family group hug. Will laughs again, and when he’s released, Pa mumbles something to Ma that must be sweet, because she lets off another laugh and waves her wooden spoon at him.

“You go wash up for dinner,” she says. “You too, Junior. Run along.”

Will does as he’s told, stomping up the stairs to his room— but he watches Pa sneak a wink at Ma before he follows suit.

He looks at her like she makes the world go round, and she loves him right back. Will has always seen a special love in his parents. It’s the purest, closest, and first love he’s ever known.

He’s too young to think so far ahead, but he knows that he wants what they have, one day.

*

_ June 1961 _

“... and I’m out there about twice a day, sometimes more—”

The timer on the stove lets off a ring, and Will halts midsentence to glance over his shoulder. “Oh,” he says. “Should be ready now.”

Derek watches him get up, smiles at the back of him, and does absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he’s totally being a gigantic sap. Will has made this  _ entire _ meal for him. He deserves to be super fucking soft about it. He reclines in his chair at Will’s kitchen able and remarks, “I can’t believe you went through all this for me.”

Will pulls the roast out of the oven, checks its thermometer, nods, and then shuts off the oven. “It’s no trouble,” he says, with his back still turned, and then reaches to grab Derek’s plate off the table. “I wanted to be a good host.”

“You’ve been a  _ great _ host,” Derek tells him. “And dinner hasn’t even started.”

Will chuckles a little. He proceeds to make each of their plates, reject Derek’s repeated offers to help him, and serve him with the same efficiency with which he waits on people at Annie’s. Derek can’t help but grin up at him, as he sets down his plate. The table is set, and the food looks delicious, and Will is too chivalrous to even be a real person.

“Hey,” Derek says, placing a gentle hand on his arm just before he pulls it away from his plate.

Will pauses there, looks down at him. “It looks and smells delicious,” Derek tells him, then pecks him gently on the mouth. When they pull away, Will is wearing a bashful smile, and it is undoubtedly the cutest shit that has ever happened in Derek’s life.

“Thank you,” he says, simply, and then they sit, and dinner begins.

*

The food tastes as good as it looks. Derek can’t remember the last time he had mashed potatoes this good, and he tries not to make any strange, vaguely sexual noises when he tastes the roast— but that’s difficult, because it’s really,  _ really _ good. He’s not so sure whether it’s the fact that Will made this with so much clear care, or if it’s actually the best food he’s had in months, but then again, it’s probably both.

They talk through dinner, and since, as it turns out, they both have a talent for eating their weight in mashed potatoes, they finish off the actual food in only about thirty minutes. When his plate is clear, and Will is smiling across the table from him, and he’s caught up in sweet, sweet mashed potato daydreams (do you ever miss a meal the second it’s over?), he leans back in his chair and lets off a long, contented sigh. “Well, Will, I think you’ve gone and done it.”

There’s a question in Will’s smile. “Gone and done what?”

“Killed me with that meal.” Derek grins at him. “That was  _ so _ good, babe. Thank you.”

“Oh.” Will chortles a little. “Well. I, uh.” His ears redden a little, and he shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. “My ma taught me most of my good recipes.”

The statement is clearly tinged with something a little bittersweet, and though Will doesn’t look  _ sad _ , exactly, it sends Derek back to earlier in the living room, with the photo of his father. He shouldn’t have compared them— he should have thought ahead. He didn’t do a great job apologizing earlier.

He’s going to try again.

“Will… can I say something?” Will nods, so he continues. “I’m sorry I compared you to your dad earlier.”

The wrinkle between Will’s brows makes a reappearance. “Huh?”

“I am,” Derek says. “I… I could tell that you didn’t like it, and I didn’t mean to say something upsetting to you.”

“Oh… you didn’t upset me,” Will says. He pauses for a moment before adding, “And you didn’t  _ compare _ me to him; you said I look like him. Which I do. I know I do.”

“But…” He can’t shake the sight of that bittersweet diner smile.

Will reaches across the table and places his hand on top of his. It’s warm, and Derek almost startles, but he meets his eyes and Will is ever-gentle, none of the harshness from when they met. “I promise I’m not offended, Der.”

Derek pauses, and his chest is doing acrobatics at even the touch from Will’s hand alone. “I’ve seen the way you smile when people say that to you at the diner,” he says. “It’s not a real smile.”

Will exhales a little, rubs his thumb against the top of Derek’s palm. “It… hurts,” he says finally. “From people in town.” He pauses. “It never doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispers.

“But not because I don’t want to be like him,” Will adds, eyes downcast to the table now. When he speaks again, his voice is small. “It hurts because he’s gone.”

The quiet seems fragile all of a sudden, like they both know they’re branching into uncharted conversational territory, like even the house itself is anticipating the vulnerability. “You can tell me, y’know,” Derek says, in an effort to ease him into it. He’s ready for whatever Will wants to explain. He knows too much as is, from Eric’s needless oversharing. “Only if you want to. But you can talk to me.”

Will glances at the water glass next to his empty plate, then ligners on it like he’s deliberating for a second. He then takes a long drink from it, like it’s liquor and he’s in a bar drowning his sorrows. When he’s done, he leans back in his chair, but keeps his hand on top of Derek’s, who dare not pull away.

“My parents are dead.”

It’s a fact Derek already knows, but it sucks all the air out of the room anyway. “I’m so sorry, Will.”

“They died when I was in high school, but not at the same time.” Will’s eyes are clouded over, like he’s going back to somewhere dim and dark in his mind. Derek knows that feeling. Re-living Andover is like that.

“It was Pa first,” Will says. “He was in the Navy. They sent him to Korea, and he didn’t make it home.”

“The Korean War,” Derek mumbles, which is a useless thing to say, but Will chuckles bitterly anyway.

“Yeah,” he says, like he’s thought about that a lot. “They never even declared a war. But so many people died anyway.”

This is worse than hearing it from Eric. So much worse. “I’m really, really sorry, Will.”

“Derek, I…” Will lifts his head a little, meets his eyes. “You don’t have to say you’re sorry.” Derek opens his mouth to protest, but Will shakes his head. “Not ever. Even for sympathetic reasons.”

“But I’m still sorry,” he replies. “I don’t want to make you talk about something that hurts.”

“It’s part of my life,” Will responds, and in that moment it hits Derek that this man must have no concept of trauma, of mental health, of ways to take care of your mind in the wake of such awful things. He thinks maybe he should teach him, but would Will feel patronized? “And there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t have to think about it anyway.”

_ Oof.  _ The pain in those words. It’s tangible. “Okay.”

Will pauses for another moment, chewing at the edge of his lip. Then he says, “I’ve been on my own for nine years.”

“So…” Derek does the math. “Since you were sixteen?”

He nods. “Ma got sick about a year after Pa died, and she was sick for ‘bout another year.” He winces a little. “I… don’t know what it was, exactly, or at least not how it started. But… she got pneumonia, towards the very end.” He glances off into the distance for a second, towards the living room, towards all the pictures. When he looks back at Derek, he says, “She’s… she’s with him now. I like to think they’re happy.”

Derek’s chest hurts.

“With my grandparents, and my uncles we lost in the war, and all.”

“Do you…” He almost doesn’t want to ask, but now they’re on the topic, so. “Do you have any family left?”

Will nods, thank God, and says, “My pa had two brothers; they live out on the coast in Bar Harbor.” He pauses. “My uncle Tommy went there to join the fishing industry… uncle Charlie followed him, and they never came back. Pa wouldn’t leave the farm. I was little.” He bites his lip again. “But then… then he was gone, and, well…” He looks around again, at all the empty, old space. “It’s my farm now.”

“Do you see them often?” Derek asks. “Your other family.”

Will shrugs. “Now and then.”

“Would you want to move to the coast?”

He shakes his head, quick and decisive. “No,” he says. “Don’t like the ocean.”

“Oh.” Derek is quiet for too long. Their conversation that night in the diner slipped his mind, at least momentarily. “Right.”

Will lets off a long breath, like he’s puffing smoke out of his system, and leans forward in his chair. “Sorry,” he says. “I… I don’t talk too often about this. Everyone in town knows as much, so—”

“Will. Please.” Derek turns his hand up, to lace their fingers together on the table. “Don’t be sorry.” He gives him a squeeze. “I’m— thank you for sharing this with me.”

“Of course. You oughta know,” Will says, like it’s the daily weather, and not his deep-seeded childhood trauma. “I miss my folks every day, but… I like to think they’re watching over me.”

Derek has never really believed in an afterlife, but in this moment, it doesn’t seem so crazy. “I’m sure they are.”

Another brief quiet falls, but it’s not awkward. It’s more of that fragility, that vulnerable authenticity. Every piece of Will, including his past, seems sacred. Derek feels, in this moment, that he needs to keep it safe, keep it close.

“What, uh…” Will starts, clearing his throat. “What about your family?”

_ Ah, fuck.  _ Derek should have seen this coming; it was the natural progression of conversation. And yet the thought of that word,  _ family _ , sends a nasty, anxious ache into his stomach. “It’s, uh…” He searches for a way to describe it all simply, and comes up short. “It’s not much of one.”

“What do you mean by that?” Will asks.

“Well… okay.” Fuck it. If he’s doing this, he might as well just explain it all, right? “I’m an only child,” he says. “And I, uh… well, I was kind of mostly raised by nannies. Random people.”

“Oh.” Will pauses, purses his lips. “Are your parents also…”

“No… they’re alive,” he says, answering the question Will won’t ask. “But they— we don’t have a good relationship.”

“Oh.” Will looks confused. “Do you mind if I ask what you mean by that?”

“My mom is a doctor and my dad is a lawyer.” He feels like he’s on autopilot; he has the spiel memorized, for mostly past therapy purposes. “They work a lot, and they’re important, and I think they have this idea that having money is the solve for all problems.”

“Well, doesn’t it help?”

“Oh, sure, it helps,” he mutters. “But… it doesn’t replace meaningful relationships.”

“So you… you don’t even  _ talk _ to your parents?”

“Not often.”

“Don’t they worry?” Will’s brow-wrinkle is back. “Not hearing from you?”

They  _ definitely _ do not. “If they do, they don’t say so.” He shrugs. “Figure they would if they did.”

“Derek, I… I’m sorry.” Will shakes his head a little. “That’s just not right. Maybe you oughta… reach out to them, tell them you love them.”

“I don’t.” It comes out too fast.

“What?”

But he’s said it now, and he can’t take it back. “I don’t.”

Will’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’ve gotta love your folks.”

“They don’t love me,” he replies. It used to hurt. Now it’s more numb.

“Sure they do,” Will says. “They made you.”

“They love money and they love themselves.” He holds back a bitter sort of laugh. “They don’t love me.” Will is silent, and still looks unbelieving. “Trust me, Will.”

“But if something ever happened to them—” he presses, “or to you—”

“Something did.”

This renders Will quiet. He’s digging way too far into the worst parts of his memory, but then again, Will did the same for him five minutes ago, so the least he can do is be honest in a vague way. “To me, that is.

“It was… ugly, and they didn’t care. I think it’s when I stopped caring, too.”

“What…” Will says. “I mean— what happened?”

“I was sick.”

It’s an oversimplification, or maybe just an uncomplicated truth, but Will nods, processes it. “Are you better now?”

“Mostly.” Because it’s true— there’s no  _ cure _ for his depression, but there are effective remedies. He’s worked so hard on himself. He’s okay. Mostly.

“Are you unwell?” Will asks, voice tinged with concern.

“No,” Derek tells him, and this is the truth— at least, for the moment.

“Alright.”

Will still looks just a little confused, so he supplements his answer with, “It’s not the kind of sick that… goes  _ away _ , entirely. Just ebbs and flows.”

“Oh,” Will says, and that’s all.  _ Oh. _

But it’s not a  _ bad _ oh. It’s just an oh that accepts a truth for what it is.

And yet Derek’s anxious brain caves in on itself, because when is it  _ not _ doing that, and then he’s analyzing his own words and falling dangerously close into a self-conscious spiral— “I’m sorry,” he says. “I— that was so ominous and sad and weird—”

“Derek, I just got done talking about how half my family is dead,” Will says. “I don’t think sad is outrageous here.”

He’s not smiling, but there’s something warm in his voice. Derek squeezes his hand again. “I’m glad we’re sharing this,” he says, and the anxiety ebbs away. “Glad we’re having this conversation.”

“So am I.” Will lifts their clasped hands, then kisses Derek’s knuckle. Derek doesn’t hold back the dork-ass smile that comes with that gesture.

Chivalry is alive and well in 1961, and its name is William Poindexter, Jr.

Will shifts in his chair a little, and the fragile air clears. “Do you like living in New York?”

Derek grins. “ _ Do _ I,” he says, and they talk on and on.

*

_ May 1946 _

“Well, that does it.”

Pa puts his fork down on his entirely empty plate. He looks Ma’s way with a big smile, one that seems to extend all the way out to his awkward ears. “Ma, that was delicious.”

Across the kitchen table from him, Ma is all smiles. “Well, thank you, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, it was real good, Ma,” Will adds, licking his fork to savor the last tastes of dinner. “‘Specially the taters.”

Ma laughs. “Well, good boy for eating the green stuff, too,” she says. “You boys are in the Clean Plate Club.”

Pa grins. “Way to go, Junior.”

Will swells in his seat a little. Any praise from Pa is high praise.

“Right, well…” Ma surveys the table, all its empty dishes. “I’ll clean up, and we’ll catch the radio. Catholic Hour is at seven.”

“Righty.” Pa slaps both his knees, and stands up at the same time she does.

“What?” she asks, observing his movement. “Where are you headed?”

Pa chuffs like it’s obvious. “To help you clean!”

“Uh-uh-uh.” She wags a finger at him. “Men who work all day don’t clean up from dinner.”

Pa lifts his shoulders in protest. “Mar, I help you all the time.”

“Sit down!” She’s smiling, but she scolds with all the fervor of a schoolteacher keeping the children in line. “I’m giving you a break.”

Will pushes back from his place at the table. “I’ll help you clean, Ma.”

“Thank you, darling,” she says, stacking plates on one arm. “Could you run and go get a dish towel off the line for me?”

“Sure thing.” Will darts across the kitchen, then out onto the porch via the back door. Ma’s clothesline is populated tonight by a few of his school clothes, plus her favorite blue dress and a few of Pa’s shirts. The towels are hanging on the other end, by the oak tree, and Will grabs one to bring back into the kitchen.

When he gets back inside, Ma is washing dishes at the sink, and by the sound of it, still chiding Pa. “... work so hard all day, William— you could use a break.”

Pa is hovering behind her, and he waves Will over. “Psst. Junior.” Will approaches, sensing he might be about to partake in some kind of dishwashing conspiracy. “Hand me that towel, wouldja?”

Will does. It’s yellow; Ma embroidered some flowers on it herself. He proceeds to watch Pa cross behind Ma to where the clean dishes sit on the rack, pick up a plate, and start to dry it off. She raises her eyebrows at him, elbows-deep in suds. “What are you doing?”

Pa smiles at her. “You wash and I’ll dry.”

Ma rolls her eyes with a smile, and then, finally, gives in. “Well, alright,” she says, and that’s just what they do.

*

_ June 1961 _

It’s around when Will polishes off what must be his third or fourth glass of water that he realizes it’s getting dark outside.

This isn’t a  _ problem _ , exactly. He knows he and Derek have been sitting here for awhile, and he has no problem letting this evening go on as late as Derek wants it to. He just didn’t really realize until he looked out the window just how long they’ve been talking since dinner ended. It must’ve been an hour ago by now.

“Whelp,” he says, during a pause in conversation, surveying the scene. It won’t be a complicated cleanup, just a few dishes. “You think I oughta clean up?”

Derek’s voice sounds as reluctant as Will feels. “Maybe.”

“After I clean, we can sit by the radio,” he adds, in haste, to ensure this won’t be the end of the night— because by  _ God _ , he thinks he never wants this night to end. Derek fills out the empty space of home in a way he never thought anyone would. “I can, uh… would you want to see some of my old photo albums?” It’s maybe a boring suggestion, but he doesn’t have much in the way of entertainment in the house. Anything with Derek sounds like the perfect rest of the evening. “I’ve got photographs of my ancestors—”

“Yes.” Derek smiles. He’s so beautiful. Will feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. “I’d love that.”

“Okay.” He starts to get up, but then something odd happens— Derek follows suit, like he’s intending to help clean. “You stay put,” he tells him.

“No, no— let me help you clean,” Derek says.

“Nonsense. Stay.” Will grabs his empty plate. “It’s no trouble.”

“ _ Will _ .” Like a puppy dog, Derek follows him to the sink, hovers over his shoulder. “You made the whole meal,” he’s saying. “At least let me help with the dishes.”

“You’re a guest!” Will says. Ma would roll over in her grave if she so much as caught a whiff of that kind of inhospitality. “You’re not helping.”

And yet— Derek Malik Nurse. “Yes, I am.” He plants a dive-bomb of a kiss on Will’s cheek. “The meal was delicious.”

Will turns on the sink and lets off a long sigh. “Derek…”

Derek searches the counter next to the sink, then grabs a dish rag. It’s one of Ma’s old ones, yellow with embroidered flowers.

When he holds it up, like a trophy, he grins at Will and says, “You wash and I’ll dry.”

_ You wash and I’ll dry _ . The words rush over Will, and all at once, in a surge of memory and springtime light, he’s ten years old again, watching his parents bicker over who’s going to clean up from dinner.

_ What are you doing?  _ Ma asks, with a laugh, as Pa tries to steal her clean dishes out from under her.

_ You wash and I’ll dry _ , Pa replies, and she rolls her eyes, but smiles all the same. It becomes something of a ritual in their dinner cleanups. She’ll tell him he doesn’t have to help. He’ll grab a rag and say the same thing.  _ You wash and I’ll dry _ . It means working together.

Twenty-five at the sink, with warm water running over his hands, staring at the smile on the face of this beautiful man who wants him despite all odds, Will falters. He thinks maybe there’s a lump in his throat.

_ You wash and I’ll dry _ .

He asked them for a sign.

“Okay,” he tells Derek, and it feels breathless, euphoric. If he wants to help, he won’t fight him anymore. Ma stopped putting up a fight to Pa, after awhile.

_ Thank you _ , he thinks, sends his words out to the house like a prayer.  _ Thank you. _

*

The photos are many, and Will knows them well. His parents used to go through them, especially at holidays, and always reminded him to consider himself blessed that they had so much documentation of their family history. Once they clean, he leads Derek by the hand into the living room, and they settle together on the couch, pressed against each other’s sides, with albums aplenty from under the coffee table.

Will never met the first handful of people in the books; the oldest ancestor his family knows of is the man from whom he got his middle name, a James Poindexter, over to Maine from Ireland in the 1860s. From there, the family grows, and Will can follow the line of men down to himself. Ma’s family is in here, too, their immigration papers and photos of his uncles from the war, a particularly good shot of them with Pa in uniform a few days before they shipped out in 1941.

There are a few from Will’s childhood, too— photos of his parents together with him always hurt just a little to look at; it reminds him so much of the happy days before everything fell to pieces. But they’re smiling, always smiling, and so is his whole family, everyone who shares his blood lost to the past.

“Wow, so…” Derek pauses with his hand on an immigration document from Ma’s grandfather. “Your family is, like, fully Irish, huh?”

Will nods. “Well, yes.”

Derek takes his hand off the page; Will gently closes the album. “And you’ve never seen Ireland?”

“No, just photographs,” he says. “I’ve never left Maine. I’m American first.”

“American first,” Derek echoes.

“But yes.” He smiles at the album in his lap, a little wistfully. “My family is Irish.”

“Chill.” Derek is smiling, too. Somehow, he’s endured the past twenty minutes of Poindexter family history. “That’s cool.”

Will studies him, in all his untouchable beauty. He almost still can’t wrap his head around the fact that Derek is in his  _ house _ , in his life, looking at photos of his family.

He never thought he’d have another man like this.

He sets the album on the table, then leans back on the couch. “What about yours?”

Derek is quiet for a second, and something passes over his eyes. “Well…”

But then their dinner conversation comes rushing back, and Will’s stomach seizes with regret. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I— you don’t have to talk about that. What with your family and all—”

“Oh— no, no, Will,” Derek says. “Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry I hesitated.”

“But you really don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “If you’d rather not.”

Derek takes a moment, like he’s thinking. Then he shifts a little; their legs rub side-by-side. He’s so warm and so strong, and so close. “No, I will,” he says finally. “There are some good things.”

“Well, alright.”

“So…” Derek leans on the back of the couch, rests his head in one hand. “My mom is black and my dad is white.”

“Oh…” Will pauses for too long. Derek is from the future; he knows this, but he also knows that if anything like that happened around here, it’d be the talk of the town. “And they’re married?”

“Yes,” Derek says.

“And that’s okay?” He hopes to God he isn’t being offensive. He just wants to know, if the world is better. “And safe?”

“Yeah, of course it is,” Derek says, like it’s nothing.

“Oh.” Will would like to live in a world like that.

“My dad is European, but… his family’s been in the US for ages,” Derek adds. “He’s, like, English or whatever. It’s not that interesting.”

Will laughs a little. “I’ll tell the English you said that.”

“Good. Go ahead.” Derek bites back a grin of his own, which is much prettier than it has business being. “Colonizing fuckers.”

Will lets his laugh break loose, and Derek adds, “But my mom… she’s black, and she actually has some family in Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” Pa was there, briefly, during the war, but it’s a postcard to Will, a far-off place from war stories and vacation ads.

“Yeah.” Derek is grinning, like he’s unlocked a fond memory. “They’re my favorite family.”

As it turns out, Derek has been there, plenty of times, to visit his grandmother and a whole host of cousins. As he tells Will about a little island and a big, open sea and the warmth of a close-knit family far from home, there’s a gentle light in his eyes, something Will could revel in watching for hours. It sounds like it’s his happy place, or at least one of them. Will isn’t sure he’s ever seen him so…  _ peaceful _ , before.

“And, uh… I got my tattoo, actually,” Derek says. “On the island.” He puts one hand on his right arm, where Will has been avoiding the sight of the ink just under his shirtsleeve all night. “This one,” he says. “My first.”

Will will not flip his wig. He tries not to stare. “What does it mean?”

Derek rolls up what’s left of his short sleeve to expose the whole thing. The tattoo is intricate, a design that must’ve taken hours, and it winds up past where his shirt begins like that’s not the end of it, which. That’s a  _ thought _ . Will swallows; his throat is dry. “It’s traditional Samoan art,” Derek explains. “It represents growth, and the cycle of life on the island.”

Will is going to die. Derek’s arm is so well-built, and the tattoo is so gorgeous, and he’s—  _ God _ , it’s too much. It’s entirely too much, and—

“It’s okay, Will,” Derek hums. “You can touch it.”

Before Will can overthink it too much, he reaches for his arm. When his fingers find skin, it’s smooth; there’s just a slight texture in the actual design. “Did it hurt?” he asks, and, mortifyingly, his voice is breathy. “When you got it, I mean.”

“Nah. Not really.” Derek sits remarkably still— which is unusual for him— as Will traces the patterns in the ink. He thinks his heart may beat out of his chest, or maybe he’ll collapse of overheating before he gets there.  _ God.  _ Okay. Alright. He can stay calm. “It’s not the most sensitive place,” Derek remarks. “Like, I have one right here—” With his other hand, he pats at his ribcage. “And  _ that _ one hurt.”

_ Oh God.  _ As if this wasn’t enough, the mental image of another tattoo on Derek’s chest sends him into what feels like full panic. He does  _ not _ want to know how red his face is right now. Or his ears. “How, uh,” he stammers. “How many do you have?”

“Two, besides this one.” Derek pauses, then pats his ribcage again. “One here, and one here.” He points to his hip as the last spot. Will is  _ praying _ he doesn’t look as flustered as he feels.

It’s just a tattoo. It’s just a tattoo. It’s just a gorgeous tattoo, on a beautiful man—

“Oh.” Will stumbles over his words. “I— I’m sorry. I—”

“Don’t be sorry, babe.” For his part, Derek is completely, well, chill. His mouth quirks in a small smile, and as he meets Will’s eyes, he asks, “Do you like it?”

“I like it so much,” Will says, because apparently his entire verbal filter is gone. “I didn’t, uh. I didn’t— well, I  _ knew _ you had a tattoo. I saw it a few weeks ago. But not up close.”

Derek is quiet for a split second, then he says, “You can get close.”

Will’s heart thumps.

“If you want.”

“I can,” Will whispers, and it’s meant as a question but it comes out more as a statement.

“Yeah.” Derek grins. “C’mere,” he says, and then they’re sitting infinitely more close, and Will’s face is much closer to his arm than it was. He runs his thumb along a zig-zag line in the cuff, lets out a long, shaky breath against Derek’s warm skin. He’s vaguely aware of the fact that his entire body is burning. He’s maybe melting. He’s never been this close to another person. He’s never  _ wanted _ another person like this. He’s so—

“Will.”

“Mm.” It’s all he can manage to get out.

“Do you want, uh.” Derek takes a steadying breath. His chill, it seems, is cracking. “Do you want to kiss it?”

Will’s stomach bottoms out. His face is inches from the tattoo, so really, it isn’t so outrageous of a request— but to hear it come out of Derek’s mouth is another thing entirely. The desire racks up his body, hot and quick, and he stumbles over his words again. “I— can I?”

“Yeah.” Derek pauses. “If you want to.”

He tips his face up to look at him; Derek’s isn’t so far away either. “Are you sure?”

“Ch’yeah.” Derek kisses him lightly. “Go ahead.”

For a split second, Will over-analyzes himself— worries he’s going to do it wrong, or that he’s going to look stupid. But another look down at Derek’s tattoo and he lets it melt away. He presses his lips lightly to the top of the band, and the sigh Derek lets off is soft but very audible. So he kisses around it a little, tries not to think about how hot his face is, how Derek can definitely tell, because of how close he is. He’s  _ so _ close— he’s so close and he’s Will’s, he’s his, he can have this, he  _ wants _ this so badly—

He moves up a little, kisses Derek’s shoulder. “Okay?” he asks, softly, lips brushing against warm brown skin.

Derek’s eyes are closed. “Totally chill.”

Will rests his hand on his tattoo, then trails kisses up his shoulder, toward his neck. Derek tilts into his touch, and he’s never done this before, nothing even close, but somehow he knows just where to press his lips, where to let his mouth linger near Derek’s jaw. Derek’s hand is on his waist, and he pulls him a little closer; Will brushes stubble with his lips.

When they meet eyes, Will is certain his heart is going to beat straight out of his body.

Derek’s pupils are blown. His eyelashes are long. Have they always been this long? “I liked that,” he tells Will, and,  _ God _ .

“Me, too,” Will whispers, and finally,  _ finally _ , Derek meets him in the middle for a real kiss.

At first, it’s chaste. Will rubs his thumb absentmindedly at the tattoo, wraps his hand around his built bicep. Derek squeezes at his waist, hums a little into his mouth. The first few kisses are light, and dry, even, but then something shifts, and Derek parts his lips a little, and all at once there’s a fire lit in Will’s stomach.

They tip back on the couch a little. Derek winds up on his back, with Will propped over him, slotted together; he slides one hand into his curls and keeps the other on his tattoo. Will loses himself in his kiss, hums in contentment when Derek slips his tongue into his mouth. He’s  _ hungry _ for this— he can’t get enough of this feeling, of the way it feels to kiss him, to hold him, to be held. He could lay here all night.

It’s slow. They move together; Derek slides warm hands just slightly under the bottom of Will’s shirt. The feeling of Derek’s hands on his skin is a new thrill, one that awakens further desire, something to be explored later, maybe. He hopes. He wants. There’s nothing rushed about this, but nothing tentative, either. He roots his hand in his curls and melts.

At some point, Derek pulls off his mouth, just briefly, and murmurs, “Will.”

It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to get his attention. All Will offers in response is, “Mm.” And then, “Derek.”

*

Will has no idea, not even the faintest, how long they lay there. If he counted the kisses, he thinks they might be in the hundreds. He doesn’t want to quantify it. He’s not sure he wants anything else in the entire world.

But at some point, Derek moves to kiss the side of his mouth, then his cheek, and then moves a little pattern around his face that Will is vaguely aware is connected to his freckles. He feels drunk, under a layer of kiss-induced haze. It’s pitch-black outside the windows. His body is warmer than a hot day in July. Is he sweating? He hopes he’s not sweating.

_ God.  _ He exhales.  _ Derek _ .

When Derek is done with whatever freckle mission he’s on, he rests his forehead against Will’s, and they share a long breath together. Will meets his eyes, drags himself reluctantly out of the daze. “Well.” He pauses for a long time. Too long. “It’s getting late.” He sighs. “Maybe I oughta get you back to Eric’s.”

Derek lets off a whining noise. “Nooo,” he groans. “Not yet.” With his hands still on his waist under his shirt, he pulls Will down so their lips brush together again. “Let’s stay here,” he says into his mouth. “We can nap.”

Will chuckles and kisses his jaw. “We’ll sleep straight through the night if we nap.” He pauses, presses his lips right to his stubble again. His ears are on fire. “That was, uh,” he manages. “That was very nice, though.”

“It was  _ extremely _ nice,” Derek says, and then he smirks a little. Will lifts his head and waits for the wise-guy remark he knows is coming. But it’s not even a wise-guy remark, not really. It’s, “You’re a good kisser.”

Will knows he’s bright red in the face. “So are you.”

Derek grins like he’s extremely pleased to hear that. When they kiss again, it’s the same as it was before— racked with tenderness, with quiet desire, with everything Will has never felt in his life before tonight. He’ll be thinking about this, dreaming about it. He has no idea how to pry himself off of Derek, to even begin to let this end.

He wonders if it has to.

“Stay awhile longer,” he mumbles against Derek’s lips.

And stay, he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooo, that was a long one! I love this story and I love you all. You can always [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and shout at me in the comments. Thank you so much for reading.


	22. was there a call for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from a song today!!! Hockeysometimes, don't interact!!!!!! (She'll chirp me because it's the one sixties crooner whose music I'm borderline obsessed with.)
> 
> Also, warning!! NSFW! There isn't smut in this chapter, but it is not PG! Will is a naughty boy. Have fun!

_ June 4th, 1961 _

_ Day 58 In Good Haven _

On Sunday morning, Will sleeps in, and wakes in a haze.

It takes him more than a moment to come to. The first thing he sees is light— the sun always tends to rise right through the window in his bedroom, and it’ll shine in his eyes like a natural alarm clock if it means he’s slept too long. So when he  _ does _ see the light this morning, he jolts upright in bed— because daylight means he’s slept in for a shift, or he’s missed morning feeds, or—

It’s Sunday.

_ Oh.  _ Will’s entire body relaxes. He surveys his bedroom and rubs his left eye. It’s Sunday, and there’s no work today, just some barn chores and the day to unwind. It’s Sunday. He can relax, to the best of his ability.

And then… it’s Sunday.

Derek was here last night.

All at once, it rushes back. He must have lay with Derek on that couch for an hour, maybe more, just kissing and touching and feeling each other’s warmth. His lips still feel raw; he’s never been kissed so much, and never touched so much either. Kissing was all they did, but Will feels wholly impure this morning, like he’s done something that goes against every rule in the book— and it feels— it feels  _ good _ . It feels  _ so _ good.

Oh  _ God.  _ He’s in so deep.

Images from last night turn themselves over in his brain as he pulls himself out of bed. The hardwood floor is cold beneath his feet, always is, and he vaguely registers that he could maybe use a shower before he gets on with his day. His legs are jelly for no good reason at all. If he tries hard enough, he thinks maybe he can still taste Derek on his mouth.

He stumbles into the shower and cranks up the water heat. His boiler is a questionable entity, tucked into the corner of the basement; he’s wrestled with it several times over his water system. Today, it does him well. He lets the warm water rain over his body and braces one arm against the shower wall, taking a long breath in.

His showers usually last all of five minutes. In, wash up, and out. That’s how it should be today— it’s how he plans it; he has no reason to linger in there. Besides, he has things to do. He has to make breakfast, tend to the barn, wait by the phone for Derek to call and ask if they can go to the pond. He wonders if it’s a little bit pathetic that he’s been waiting so much for calls from him, but they have a Sunday routine now; they spend Will’s day off by the pond, just sitting on a blanket, talking or having lunch or even just sharing quiet while Derek writes or draws.

Will has come to be fond of those Sunday afternoons.

But the fact remains— this shower should be a quick thing to check off of his unwritten to-do list. Instead, he lingers even after washing. The warm water and steam remind him of last night, of how hot he felt in Derek’s arms, face flushed and lips raw, so close with another person for the first time in his life. If he closes his eyes, he can see Derek sprawled out on the couch beneath him. He can recall the feeling of Derek’s tattooed skin under his mouth. He can hear the way Derek mumbled his name.

Will shudders. Desire racks his body like nothing ever has before.

He rubs at the inside of his thigh, like it’ll quell the throbbing in his abdomen, but it’s no use; he’s not sure he’s ever been on-edge quite like this. After a moment’s hesitation, he lets his hand, soaking and shaky, travel between his legs and take hold of himself.

It wouldn’t be the very first time he’s done this, but it’s the first time he’s done it thinking of another person. He tightens his hand and stifles a groan. It’s not Derek’s hand, but— but,  _ God _ , if he tries hard enough he can imagine it is.

Does he want that?

God— oh,  _ God _ , he does. He’s not sure he’s ever wanted anything more in his life. But  _ Christ _ , they’re not  _ married _ ; they never will be— they’re barely  _ involved _ — is this what an hour of kissing can do to him? Render him hot all over and pushed to the breaking point, just because of a beautiful man’s mouth?

“Fuck,” he chokes, and  _ God _ , yeah, he  _ does _ want him. Every suppressed thought from the weeks of looking at him across the diner bar comes rushing to the forefront of his mind. He holds himself tighter; he can feel himself coming to the edge, and then—

“ _ De _ —” All at once, he’s releasing, and he’s grateful in that moment to be in the shower, so there’s not much of a mess to clean up, but once it’s over, he’s reeling in the aftershocks, knees weakened and face burning, and oh,  _ God _ . He wipes at his stomach, reaches for the bar of soap for the second time today.

Now he knows he’s  _ really _ done something against the rules.

The only problem is that it feels so  _ good _ .

*

_ June 5th, 1961 _

_ Day 59 In Good Haven _

Sunday goes just the way it’s supposed to; he works all morning and spends the afternoon with Derek by the pond. By Monday, when he gets back to work, dinner on Saturday night feels like a far-off memory, and a good one, at that.

But at opening in the morning, as he’s tucking his uniform hat onto his head and tying his apron, Kenny appears out of nowhere. He’s usually sluggish at these early-morning shifts, especially on a Monday, but today he’s in high spirits— there’s a huge smile on his face, and he swoops over the bar, slapping both hands on its surface in an almost businesslike fashion. The sound seems to echo over the empty dining room, and Will raises his eyebrows. “Good morning.”

“William. James.” Kent’s voice is low, but his energy is not. “How was your weekend.”

“It was just fine, Kenny.” Will finishes tying his apron up, then tries to suppress a grin as he fumbles for his coffee pot behind the bar. “How was yours?”

“Uh-uh-uh,” Kent chides, as Will turns away from him. He rounds the bar and sidles up next to him, planting himself at his side. “You’re not getting off that easy, fella.”

Will says nothing, prepping the coffee pot, but he can feel himself losing the fight to contain his smile.

“C’mon,” Kent urges, elbowing him in the ribs.

Will stays quiet. If Kent wants the report of his weekend, he’s going to have to work for it.

“ _ Dexy _ .”

He finishes changing out the filter and fills the pot with water.

“ _ Tell me _ !” Kent is borderline whining now. When Will meets his eyes, he holds all the eagerness of a bored local who’s desperate for gossip. “How was it?”

Okay, that’s it— Will’s fight is over. He lets his smile out and exhales. “It was ‘swell, Kenny.”

Kent beams, then peeks at his watch. “You have exactly seventeen minutes to tell me all about it.”

So Will does.

*

_ June 11th, 1961 _

_ Day 65 In Good Haven _

It’s a normal week, as far as work weeks go. Will makes a habit of getting on the phone with Derek in the evenings, after his shifts, even the late ones that last till close. He’s painting away at the inn, and Will has his hands full with work on his still-young gardens for the season, so it’s busy— but it’s good, too; Derek is a soothing and steady presence. By the time the next Sunday rolls around, Will hasn’t seen him since Wednesday.

He wakes to rain, which makes his barn chores muddy and relatively unpleasant, but at least the cows are having fun with it out in the field. When he’s inside and dry again, after his morning work, the phone rings in the middle of his breakfast.

He eyes it from his seat at the kitchen table as it rings a second time. There are only a few people who ever call him, but he can never be sure who’s on the other end.

He’s hoping it’s who he wants it to be.

“Hello,” he says as he lifts it to his ear, “Will Poindexter.”

“Well,  _ hello _ , Will Poindexter,” sings Derek’s voice from the receiver, which— Will should have known.

“Oh,” he chuckles. “Hi, Der.”

“Hey.”

He leans against the wall by the phone, smiling like a fool. “How are you?”

“I just woke up…” Derek says. “... and it was raining.”

“Mm, yeah, thank you.” Will glances out the window, where the raindrops are unrelenting. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Derek laughs. “Shut up!” he cries. “I’m sad.”

“What?” he replies. “Why are you sad?”

“Because it’s raining.”

“So?”

“ _ So _ ,” Derek says, “we can’t go to the pond.”

“Oh.” Will laughs a little. “Derek. Why don’t you just come over?”

“I would like that,” he replies. “But consider this: Eric isn’t here.”

Will squints at the phone. “Oh?”

Derek sounds very conspiratorial all of a sudden. “What if I told you the radiator in my room is making, like, a  _ lot _ of noise?”

“It is?” Will glances at his own radiator, out of habit. The thing is old as all hell, but it does the job. “What kind of noise?”

“Nasty noise,” Derek says. “I think I might need someone to come over and take a look at it.”

“Well—” Will pauses. “Well, I could take a look at it, if you wanted.”

“ _ Ah _ .” There’s a big grin in Derek’s voice, the kind of thing that used to make him angry, and now turns his legs into jelly. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

“But wait— does Eric not want me fixing it?” Will asks.

“Why wouldn’t he want you fixing it?”

“Because you said he isn’t home.”

“Oh, that was just a random piece of info.” Derek pauses. “I’m sure he’d be fine with it.”

“I— well— okay.” There’s something just slightly off about this, but Will isn’t sure what it is. He doesn’t want the radiator to bust in Derek’s room, though— and that’s a problem he can fix. “Well, let me come over there, then. Are you busy?”

He can tell he’s still smiling. “Not in the slightest.”

“Okay.” Will pauses, nods. He’ll have to change, and grab his tools from the barn. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Perfect,” Derek says, and then, “Bring your WJP toolbox.”

“Why would I come to fix something and not bring my—”

“I’m just  _ chirping _ , Will.”

“Chirping?”

“It’s just hockey smack t— ch’know what, whatever. Just get your ginger ass over here.”

“ _ Derek _ .”

“Byeeee! See you soon!”

The line goes dead, and Will stares at the receiver for several seconds of the dial tone before shaking his head and putting it back down on its stand.

Derek is from another world.

Literally.

*

The rain comes down in torrents on his windshield on the way over to Eric’s. When he pulls into the lot, it’s sparsely populated; Eric’s blue Chevy pickup is missing, just like Derek said. Will still has no idea what Eric not being here has to do with Derek wanting him to fix the radiator, but whatever. He’ll find out what’s going on in a minute.

It’s an excuse to see Derek, so he isn’t complaining.

He walks up the front steps and knocks, but two seconds after he’s done so, it occurs to him that Eric isn’t even here, as evidenced by the  _ Be Back Soon!  _ sign posted where his Easter wreath used to be, so who’s even going to answer the—

The door swings open. “William J Junior, I owe you my life.”

Will exhales. “Hi, Derek.” He’s wearing a Samwell University t-shirt, plus gray cloth pants with lines down the sides that Will  _ knows _ he has explained to him before— joggers, he thinks they’re called? Whatever they are, they have  _ no  _ business making Derek look as good as they do, but the real kicker is that he’s also wearing—  _ glasses _ ? For some reason? They’re simple frames, rectangular and black, and Will has no idea why, but the sight of him in them is— well— it’s a  _ sight _ .

“Since when did you wear glasses?” he asks, as Derek lets him in and out of the rain.

Derek flashes a grin, folding his arms. His shirtsleeves are short enough that his tattoo is on full display, and Will isn’t sure he can handle all of this at once. “Since all the time, actually,” he replies. Will brushes droplets of rain off his forehead. “I have contacts.”

As Will follows him up the stairs, he asks, “What are contacts?”

“You’ll find out eventually.” Derek stops by the doorway of one of the bedrooms, and Will glances from side to side. The place seems pretty empty, which he guesses it usually is on a Sunday. He hasn’t been on the top level of the inn in ages, but it all looks the same, save the new paint jobs that have been gradually going up on the walls since Derek took up artist’s residence here.

“I’m in here,” Derek says, opening the door he’s stopped next to, and Will drops his toolbox next to the radiator as they walk inside. The room— it’s the one with the yellow curtains— it  _ looks _ like Derek, somehow, from the writing supplies scattered all over the desk to the line of five pairs of shoes by the dresser. His clothes hang in the closet, and it even smells like him, like the coconut stuff he uses in his hair. Will glances at him, just for a moment, before he catches sight of what’s hanging on the back of the door— Derek’s denim jacket, and on top of it, his green ball cap.

Will didn’t bring a hat.

He grins, just a little, and reaches for it, then takes it from the hook and places it backwards on his own head. Before Derek can say a word— or even notice, actually, because his back is to him; he’s craning his head out the door like he’s looking for something in the hall— he kneels next to the radiator, opens the top of his toolbox, and asks, “So… what’s going on?”

“What?” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Derek turn around, and then laugh and stumble backwards. “ _ Hey _ , where’d you get that hat?”

Will sneaks a glance up at him mid-radiator inspection. “I found it,” he remarks, with a shrug, a wink, and a tiny smile.

Derek laughs again, and Will goes back to the radiator. It doesn’t appear to be making any noise right now, but then again, maybe it’s just between cycles. When he touches a knuckle to one of the metal bars, it’s warm, but not scalding.

“So—” he starts to ask again, but before he can, Derek shuts the door and pipes up.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Will furrows his brow at the radiator. “Sure thing.”

Then there’s the unmistakable  _ click _ of Derek locking the door. He jiggles it once, twice, like he’s making sure it’s closed, and then looks back to Will with a grin that could knock him clean off his feet. When he speaks, it’s in a whisper. “There’s nothing wrong with the radiator.”

“What?” Will knits his brows at him. He looks at the thing one more time; now that he listens closely, it’s humming, but not in a menacing way. Just in a normal radiator way. “Then why did you say there was?”

Derek crosses the brief patch of carpet between them, then kneels to his eye level. “Because I may or may not have wanted to get the town handyman alone in my room.”

“I—” Will falters, and feels blood rush to his face. He looks around the room, then to his toolbox. “What?”

“ _ Shh _ ,” Derek whispers, leaning across the distance between them. “It’s okay,” he hums. “No one’s home.”

Derek cups his face when he kisses him, and Will nearly melts in the simple gesture, but he pulls away when Derek tries to kiss him a second time. “But,” he says, “but Der— why didn’t you just come over to my house?”

Derek shrugs a little. Behind his glasses, his eyes are twinkling. “Because this is fun.”

Will’s words get lost in his throat. He feels like a little bit of a fool for being so gullible, but— but then again—

Derek is turning him into a fool.

When they kiss again, it’s warm and long, and Derek rises just a little off his knees with a gentle exhale into his mouth. Will nudges his toolbox aside with his knee, and all at once Derek’s hands are on him— one by his waist, one pressed by the palm into his ribcage. He leans into the touch, finds a handful of Derek’s loose curls by his ear. All that separates them from the world are a few thin, newly painted walls, and yet this is the only thing Will wants to do.

The kiss becomes more than one, and Will’s body is burning again, but Derek draws him in and he stays close. Derek reaches for Will’s free hand, takes it gently, and guides it to the hem of his shirt, where Will hooks his fingers in the fabric and shudders a little against his kiss. With Derek’s prompting, he eases it carefully, slowly, up the warm skin of his stomach, and rests it near his well-built center. His own stomach is in knots. It’s a spell he doesn’t want to break.

But then, halfway through a soft kiss, Will can feel Derek growing unsteady where he’s balanced on his knees. “ _ Mmf _ —” Will pulls away, catches Derek by the waist before he can fall sideways into the radiator. “ _ Careful _ , Der,” he whispers. “Gee whiz. You’d’ve burned yourself.”

Derek laughs, lips still brushing his mouth. “My hero,” he murmurs, and then, for no apparent reason, echoes, “Gee whiz.”

“What?” Will meets his eyes across the small space between them, vaguely aware that Derek has just done an impression of him. “Are you mocking me?”

“No,” Derek hums, rubbing one thumb at his waist. “Just chirping.”

Will rolls his eyes into another kiss, and then all at once his common sense seems to catch up with him— they’re at  _ Bittle’s Inn _ , not in his house where it’s safe, and anyone could find them—

“Derek,” Will whispers, bringing his hand to the side of his face. Derek’s eyes flutter open slowly, like he’s lost himself in their kiss and needs to find his way back down to Earth. Will knows the feeling.

“Yes?” Derek asks, finally, once they’ve met eyes again.

“Are you,” Will says slowly; he can’t get his voice low enough. He rubs at his jaw with his thumb. It’s just a little stubbly. “Are you sure this is safe.”

“This is safe,” Derek replies, voice just as small, and plants a short kiss on his mouth like he wants to prove it. “Eric won’t be home until late. Ten, maybe. He’s at his parents’ every Sunday for dinner.”

“Right.” Vaguely, Will knows this. He’s tagged along to a few Bittle-family Sunday dinners with Kenny and Annie. “Okay. But the other guests?”

“Changeover day,” Derek whispers. He kisses the side of Will’s mouth. “They’re all leaving. No new check-ins until tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Will takes a moment to process this, while Derek continues kissing around his face. He moves from his nose to his cheeks, between his eyebrows, back down to his mouth. There’s a question in his eyes as he pauses there.

“We shouldn’t do this here,” Will mumbles, surveying his toolbox beneath them. His dead, Catholic father’s toolbox. While he kisses another man above it. Jesus  _ Christ _ . “On the floor.”

Derek’s eyes flick up towards the yellow bed. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“We—” Will’s heart is pounding. “Just this?” he asks. He rubs at Derek’s bare waist where he’s holding it under his shirt. “I— I need to do this slowly.”

Derek grins. He nods. “I can do slow.”

Will exhales. “Okay,” he says, and lets Derek lead him up to the bed.

Will slips out of his shoes, and they flop down into it together, landing with a laugh against each other’s mouths. Derek’s tongue teases at his mouth, and Will slides his hands— both of them now— back under his shirt to explore. Derek’s legs are on either side of his waist, and he’s beneath him, but he doesn’t feel pinned— not by a long shot.

He’s never been more comfortable.

Between kisses, Derek mutters, “I want, uh.” Pause. Another kiss. “I want to kiss you for, like.” And another. “Several hours.”

Will feels lightheaded. Warm.  _ Safe _ . “That sounds good to me.”

They stay there all afternoon.

*

_ June 12th, 1961 _

_ Day 66 In Good Haven _

It’s not that Derek isn’t paying attention when it happens.

He’s  _ very _ careful, actually. About everything. He has been ever since the moment he and Will decided they were in this as a couple. He treats every little interaction they have in public with the same scrutiny he did his ‘Andover persona’, the front he put on for all the fake white people who would’ve judged him otherwise. He knows it’s not safe here. He  _ knows _ what they’re doing is dangerous.

So when it happens, it’s an accident.

They’re on the phone on Monday night, after Will’s shift. Derek has spent the day tackling the paint job in the kitchen, and Eric oversaw the process; he put a fresh coat of a nice peach color on, and Eric sung his praises from start to finish. When he was done, he rewarded himself with a slice of rhubarb pie, a long shower, and a dial to Will’s home phone number.

They’ve been talking for about half an hour. Will has a few stories from work— apparently Johnson’s wife just had twins, and Kent nearly lit a stack of menus on fire today with a cigarette butt. The stories themselves aren’t anything special, but the way Will tells them can get Derek laughing with minimal effort. There’s something really fucking nice about the fact that this grouchy ginger man has such softness for him alone.

“... Eric loved the color, though,” he’s saying, at some point well into the call, twirling the phone cord around his pinky. “He says it matches his apron.”

Will laughs. “That’s fitting,” he says. “Since it’s the kitchen.”

“Facts.” Derek pauses. “I made, like, seven different jokes about Georgia peaches. I don’t think they landed.”

“Georgia peaches,” Will echoes with a chuckle. “Yeah, I’m sure he gets that one a lot.”

“Well, it  _ is _ right there.”

“It’s a little feminine,” Will mutters, then, with the verbal equivalent of a shrug, adds, “So what’s next on the paint list?”

“The downstairs bathrooms,” Derek replies. He’s not so much looking forward to those, since they have small windows and aren’t huge spaces to work in. But they have to get done. “I like the color. It’s, like seafoam.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice,” Will replies. “So you get to spend your whole day next to a toilet?”

Derek snorts into the phone. “Yeah, it’s the height of luxury. I can’t wait.”

“Maybe you could use it,” Will hums, with a smile in his voice. “It’ll knock your ego down a few pegs.”

“Oh my  _ God _ , babe,” Derek laughs. “I thought you liked me. I’m offended.”

And then— “Derek?”

Derek freezes.

That is not Will’s voice.

“Is that you?” It’s Eric. Oh, fuck—  _ fuck _ , he must have picked up the other line, from another room. “Who’re ya talking to?”

Derek’s heart threatens to thump out of his body.  _ Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.  _ How long has he been listening in? Did he hear Will, too? Can Will hear this?

Whatever Will can or can’t hear, he falls completely silent. Derek grips the receiver, white-knuckled, and stares at it while he tries to figure out— like— should he  _ talk _ ? Should he  _ not _ talk? Did Eric hear him calling someone  _ babe _ ?

Did he hear him call  _ Will _ babe? Oh,  _ fuck _ —

Derek slams the phone down onto its base before he can do anything else stupid. Once it’s down, and the call has ended, he stares at it on the desk, runs his hands through his hair.

_ Fuck. Shit. Motherfucking fuck. _

He has  _ no _ idea how much of that conversation Eric just overheard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr so we can yell together about the omgcp finale! And fear not— the comic may be ending, but this story is here to stay. See you next Wednesday! Thank you for reading! <3


	23. secondhand news

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I keep writing long notes at the beginning of chapters, but I do want to say something before this one starts out. A few things, actually, starting with: I'm sorry for the cliffhanger last week. I'm here to assuage your suspense!!  
> The second thing is this— a few of you have been speculating about Bitty in this AU, and he'll be a heavy player in this chapter, for obvious where-we-left-off reasons. You'll learn this this chapter, but yes, Bitty is just as gay in this story as he is in canon— don't worry, I'd never straightwash! But something about Bitty in this story that might be a little bit different from canon Bitty is this: it's 1961, and Bitty is from Georgia. Bitty is NOT deliberately racist, but Bitty does come from a background where he holds certain (heteronormative, divisive) preconceived notions about dating and love. You'll see him speculate about Derek being involved in this chapter with someone he assumes Derek is involved with based on stereotypes. It isn't meant to be comfortable, because it's not. But Bitty does not intend to be harmful in any way.  
> Writing a story set in 1961 means that there are occasional incidents and interactions where the period-typical attitude of certain characters would be considered ignorant today. Bear with me while I dive briefly into this in this chapter.  
> And without further ado, here's the actual chapter. <3

_ June 13th, 1961 _

_ Day 67 In Good Haven _

The worst part isn’t even that Eric catches him on the phone.

The worst part comes the next morning. Derek spends the entirety of the evening after his cut-short phone call with Will festering in his own anxiety. He can’t call Will back to talk about what happened; he’s terrified of the same kind of interception from Eric on the extension. Which means he can’t talk it out with anybody— all he can do is sit in the yellow room and wait.

At first, he debates going downstairs and finding Eric and just having the talk now. Maybe he should lay it all out, be honest, and hope and pray that Eric is trustworthy. It’d be better, he thinks, than having Eric tell someone else, and endangering Will. But the plan is a passing, fleeting thing, because he still has no idea how much of his conversation Eric was listening in for, and on the off chance Eric doesn’t know he was talking to Will, he’d be shooting himself in the foot by making a confession of something Eric had no reason to be suspicious of.

So, instead— he waits. He sits in his room and waits for morning, when he figures Eric will bring it up one way or another.

It’s one of the longest nights he can remember, and insomnia and depression at Andover and ever since then have given him some  _ really fucking long _ nights. He stays up until midnight stress-sketching, then makes an earnest attempt to do his bedtime routine and actually get to sleep, except that’s not effective at all, as it turns out, because his mind is still racing when he tucks himself under the yellow covers. He tosses and turns for what feels like hours, but every time he sneaks a glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand, the minute hang is creeping along as if it’s operated by a snail. The time will just  _ not _ pass.

He expects the worst. It’s what he should expect, right?  _ God _ — has it been this easy to eavesdrop on their phone conversations the whole time? He’s done a lot worse things on the phone these past few weeks than just call Will  _ babe _ .

_ I had fun tonight _ , he’s said.  _ You’re a really good kisser _ . Or,  _ your courting methods are fascinating, Dexy.  _ Or,  _ I can’t believe I came all the way from 1961 to go out with a man who prefers ketchup to mustard _ .

They’re tame things, benign statements— in his own time. But here, they’re incriminating. The knowledge of him and Will, in the hands of the wrong person, could ruin them both.  _ Especially _ Will. In a small town like this— the one he  _ grew up in _ , no less; everybody  _ knows _ him here, and this is his one best-kept secret, and Derek fucked it up for him; he could have ruined his  _ life _ —

_ Calm down. Chill. _

And not to mention what this might mean for him _ self _ ,  _ fuck _ — not even just the time travel stuff but the fact that he’s living in the fucking 1960s, as a Black man, in a romantic relationship with a white man—

God, they’ve been careful, and Good Haven is easy enough to sneak around once you get the hang of it, and sure, he’s writing and drawing and painting and fucking around, trying to make the best of this time travel fuckery, but—

But he has a  _ life _ , that he  _ values _ , and what the hell is he going to do if he gets thrown in 1961 jail for being the self he was never afraid of being in his own world?

Morning can’t come fast enough.

And then the worst thing happens. Just when Derek can’t take the anxiety anymore, and he sits down at the breakfast table before his work day begins— just when he’s ready for Eric to just bring it up and talk about it already— Eric  _ doesn’t _ .

Eric takes a seat with him at the table, flashes a cheery smile, and strikes up a conversation about fruit preserves.

Fucking fruit preserves.

Derek’s anxiety is going to cause him to spontaneously combust.

It takes an  _ unholy _ amount of time for Eric to actually bring it up, and when it happens, Derek is so numb with panic that it takes him by surprise.

It’s mid-afternoon, and he’s out on a ladder chipping off loose paint around the windows on the top floor of the inn. It’s one of many gradual steps he’s been taking towards actually painting the outside, and it’s a beautiful day outside, from the cloudless blue sky to the seventy-five degrees to the slightest of breezes that evens out the creeping warmth of summer. Derek wears a pair of Will’s old overalls, lent to him for painting purposes (oh, to wear your boyfriend’s clothes), and his green hat perched artfully atop his head. It’s chill. It’s like he’s totally not freaking out.

Has Eric reported him already? Is this just the calm before the storm?

Are both their lives about to be ruined?

Just then, Eric strolls out the back door of the inn, holding a tray with two glasses of what looks like iced tea and wearing a literal actual sunhat like he’s part of  _ Better Homes and Gardens _ magazine. He smiles up the ladder. “It’s looking great, Derek,” he calls. “Thank you so much, hon. All your work is getting this place in ship-shape.”

“Of course,” Derek replies, half because he’s getting paid to do this and half because he’s absolutely terrified of this tiny Southern man right now. “I’m glad I can help out.”

“I brought you some sweet tea,” Eric continues, holding up the tray. “Thought you could use a break for a minute.”

Derek tries to decide whether this is some form of passive-aggressive Southernness, but he has no fucking idea. He’s too anxious for this shit right now. Chipping paint off a building is mindless work; having a conversation with Eric in this mental state is not.

But what’s he going to do, turn him down? He nods and starts down the ladder, being  _ very careful _ not to miss any steps. Will would scold him for days if he fell off this thing and hurt himself. “Thank you,” he says. “On my way.”

He succeeds in his descent, and when both his feet are firmly planted on the ground, Eric hands him a sweating glass. There’s a paper straw in it, and the sweet tea is delicious, because of course it is. He thinks maybe Eric sold his soul to the devil in exchange for impeccable culinary and hospitality skills.

He’s mid-brain-freeze-inducing-sip when Eric says, out of nowhere, “Were you on the phone last night?”

Derek swallows— tightly— and does not choke. He nods, because what’s he going to do, deny it? “Ch’yeah, I— yeah. You picked up and heard me, right?”

“Mm, yeah. I did.” Eric is nodding, but his expression, shaded by his hat, is absolutely unreadable. It’s heart-pounding, and Derek might pass out, until he asks, “Who were you talkin’ to?”

Oh, thank  _ Christ.  _ A surge of relief floods through him. Eric didn’t hear Will on the phone. He can work with this. “Somebody from town.”

He knows he’s basically dodged Eric’s entire question, but Eric’s eyes light up anyway, like this is a fun and entertaining game. “Someone from town, huh?” he says. “Okay, keep your secrets.”

_ Thank God.  _ This was so much less terrifying than he thought it was going to be. “Someone from town indeed,” he remarks, simply, and then finishes off his glass.

Eric, meanwhile, stirs his own tea with his straw. He leans against the side of the building for a moment, something contemplative on his face, and then smiles at Derek a little, and Derek realizes that maybe this isn’t actually over. “You don’t have a girl at home, do you?”

Derek shakes his head. “Nah,” he replies. “I fly solo.”

“Hm.” Eric is smiling more now. He sips his tea like Kermit the Frog. “Interesting.”

A brief silence falls. Derek knows he’s prodding, but he feels more secure in the knowledge that Eric has no idea who was on the other end of the phone call. Unless he’s bluffing? What reason would he have to bluff?

And then Eric says, “It’s okay, honey. You can tell me. I know who it is.”

Derek’s life leaves his body. He tries not to let it show on his face. “What?”

“I’m just so happy for her,” Eric adds, with a little smiling sigh, and the pronoun restores Derek’s pulse, but he still kind of has no idea who they’re talking about. He wonders if he should play along.

No, he  _ definitely _ shouldn’t. Whoever Eric is thinking of, it’s a real person, and he can’t claim to be seeing some random girl when he isn’t. “You two make a cute couple,” Eric tells him.

“I…” He shakes his head. “Eric, I  _ wish  _ I knew who you were talking about.”

Eric laughs, like Derek is being a sneaky little shit. “ _ Denice _ !” he cries, still all smiles. “I’m no nosebleed. All that running off to the diner, sneaking out at night?” He shakes his head, tuts a little. “You think you’re smooth.”

“Denice?” Derek raises his eyebrows. “The waitress?”

“Oh, look at  _ you _ ,” Eric laughs, “playing dumb. I know you’ve been out with her.”

It only takes a second to connect the dots in his head. Eric picked up on his diner frequenting, sure, but— there are several other female employees there, any of which could be Eric’s assumed reason for his visits there. This assumption seems grounded in something else entirely— something much more divisive and stereotypical.

He folds his arms and leans against his ladder. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, you  _ know _ ,” Eric says. He’s still smiling. “She’s such a sweet thing, ain’t she? I had a hunch about you two. You just love visiting her at work.”

Derek narrows his eyes. “And… what makes you think it’s not someone else at the diner?”

Eric falters a little. “Well—” He stops. “I mean, you—”

Ah. Got him. He won’t say it flat-out, to his face, like most well-meaning white people.

_ It’s 1961 _ , he reminds himself, with a deep breath.  _ And he’s from Georgia. _

“I’m sorry,” Eric says, finally, with a frown. “I— maybe it’s different in New York.”

“It is,” Derek replies, and he tries to shake the headache that this conversation is giving him. It’s far from the worst microaggressive bullshit he’s put up with in his life, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother him. He puts on his Andover smile, because honestly, it’s not fucking worth it right now. “But it’s chill,” he tells Eric. “I’m not dating Denice.”

“Hm.” Eric smiles again, like he’s back to scheming, but Derek can tell there’s a rift in this topic that wasn’t there before. “Well, alright, then. Keep your secrets.”

He watches him finish his tea, then put both empty glasses back on the tray and set it down in the grass. “My  _ Lord _ ,” he remarks, strolling out onto the grass a little, both hands on his hips. “It’s just gorgeous out, ain’t it?”

“It’s nice,” Derek replies. He studies Eric for a second, this slightly nosy enigma of a man. He should have known he was a gossip from the moment he decided to randomly share the diner’s staff’s life stories over brunch that one time.

Suddenly, Derek’s curious. Two can play at this game, right?

“Why aren’t you married, Eric?”

Eric looks over his shoulder. He doesn’t look offended, maybe more just sad. He wonders if he’s unlocked some kind of tragic romantic backstory, and if Eric is going to overshare it just like he does everything else.

But Eric shakes his head. He shrugs. There’s something soft and disappointed in his eyes. “I bake too much.”

Derek arches an eyebrow. It sounds like a euphemism. Is it a euphemism?

But Eric seems done with the topic, and, thank Christ, that’s the end of it. For now. They don’t talk about dating anymore.

He can breathe again.

*

_ June 14th, 1961 _

_ Day 68 In Good Haven _

Will hasn’t heard from Derek in almost forty-eight hours.

He expects the worst. Eric has turned him in, and Derek is in trouble, and he’s next. He  _ knows _ that Derek can’t call him to tell him what’s going on, not after what happened on Monday night. It isn’t safe. And he’s starting to wonder if something  _ really _ bad has happened to him, if he was thrown in jail or worse— but wouldn’t he have heard by now? Wouldn’t someone be coming to him?

Wouldn’t he be next?

It’s not that Will thinks of Eric as a distrustworthy person. That’s Kenny’s cousin, and since Kent might as well be his brother, Eric is practically family. His folks were close with Ma and Pa, and Eric has known him all his life.

But… this secret of his, this hidden thing that’s only become active since Derek was in his life— that’s enough to change  _ anyone’s _ view of him, even someone who may as well be family.

Then again, Eric is okay with Kenny, his own cousin, and it’s not like  _ he _ does much in the way of keeping things a secret. But at least Kenny does his mixing with men less complicated than Derek, men who come from afar and leave quickly, men who aren’t  _ working for Eric right now _ —

And  _ God _ , he and Derek wouldn’t even be socially acceptable if Derek were a girl—

But this is  _ Eric _ — baker extraordinaire, wearer of pink aprons, flamboyant Eric. Will has had more than a few suspicious thoughts about him. If he has anything to hide, anything like Kenny’s not-so-secrets… they’re not buried layers and layers deep like Will’s are.

Maybe Derek skipped town. Will would hurt a little not to say goodbye to him, but if he was able to get unstuck in time, Will would understand how that would be the best option for him. Provided he’s able, he could wipe his hands clean and leave this place.

But would he do that? Without so much as a word to Will before he went?

Will doesn’t think he would.

He shows up to work on Wednesday in a hazy panic, waves to the kitchen guys as he passes their window from the back door. “Afternoon, Will,” River calls from the grill, and Johnson’s back is turned to him at the dishwashing station, but he lifts his hand in greeting like he has eyes in the back of his head.

“Hey, Riv,” Will mutters, then tries to shake off the nerves. If the kitchen guys are treating him normally, there’s a good chance the news isn’t spreading the way his wildest fears told him it was. He passes through the staff room, ties his apron on the way to the bar, and relieves Jonathan of his morning shift. The bar is populated by regulars, and no one looks at him any differently.

He might be in the clear.

He lasts about twenty minutes into his shift before he’s bursting at the seams to talk to Kent. And for some reason, the feeling seems to be mutual— because right as he’s debating whether he should walk over to the host stand and find a subtle way to say something, Kent walks over to the bar with a stack of menus and hands them over with his back to the dining room.

“We need to talk,” Kent says, in a low voice.

Will’s stomach turns. “Does it involve Eric?”

“Yes.” Kent doesn’t look panicked, but then again, Kent isn’t the best at showing his honest, actual emotions. “I’m going on my break in ten,” he adds.

Will nods. He knows what this means. “Understood.”

Ten minutes later, when he sees Kent head back to the staff room, he tags Denice in to mind the bar for five minutes, then follows him there.

“Kenny.” Will shuts the door behind him. Kent is standing at his locker, smoothing his cowlick with his hat off. “How much do you know?”

Kent whirls around his heel, rubbing at both temples. “Eric called me this morning and accused me of sleeping with curly boy.”

Will recoils. This was  _ not _ what he was expecting. “He  _ what _ ?”

“ _ I know _ .” Kent sighs. “And for your information, I  _ vehemently _ denied his accusations. But that boy is on the  _ trail _ for something.”

Will groans into his hand. “I know what the something is.”

“What happened?”

“He caught Derek and I on the phone on Monday night.” Will squeezes his eyes shut. His head hurts. “And I’m guessing this means he couldn’t tell it was me on the other end.”

“Jesus fuck, Dexy,” Kent replies. “You were using Eric’s number to call him?”

“I do  _ not  _ feel like being read the riot act right now, Kenny.”

“Did not occur to you that Eric could pick up the phone and—”

“ _ Kent _ , I’m  _ serious _ —”

“Okay, the  _ only _ reason I’m choosing to skip past this is because there’s something more important I have to tell you.” Kent lowers his voice. “You have to take this to the grave.”

Will knits his brows. “What?”

“Don’t tell anybody,” he urges. “I’m serious, okay?”

“Uh.” Will feels uneasy, but he nods. “Okay.”

Kent takes a deep breath, then mumbles, “Eric… he, uh— he told me he’s… like us.”

Will pauses. Squints. Processes this. “Eric?” he says, uselessly. “He’s—?”

“Yes.” Kent nods. “He is.”

Will opens his mouth to respond, and nothing comes out. He’s not  _ surprised _ , exactly, by the actual information, but he  _ is _ surprised that Eric shared it with Kent. “He just randomly told you?”

“In the context of this situation.”

“But— but he— he played college hockey?”

Kent snorts a little. “What’s that have to do with it?”

“I— I don’t know.” Will pauses. “How’d he make it through in piece, if he’s—? I always think of guys on college teams to be a little less— well— good at baking, if you know what I mean.”

“Dexy,  _ we _ played hockey.”

“In  _ high school _ ,” he replies. “And we’re not like Eric.”

“Don’t be offensive.” Will roll his eyes as Kent pauses. “Anyway, college hockey aside. I think he thinks he offended Derek. They must’ve had some conversation about it—”

“Does Eric suspect me?”

“Not in the slightest,” Kent says. “I made sure of it.”

Will exhales. “Thank you, Kenny.”

“Of course.”

But there’s something missing in this conversation, something he needs to know. “I.” Will tips his head up to the ceiling. He takes a long breath in, lets it out through his mouth. Without looking at Kent, he says, “I need to know that Derek is okay.”

“Well,” Kent says, “I don’t think Eric  _ said _ anything to anybody but me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay.” It’s a good enough thing to hear from someone else, but he knows he needs to figure out a way to see him. He isn’t sure he can rest until he lays eyes on him, all in one piece, and touches him, holds him again. “That’s good to hear.”

“Hey,” Kent says. “Dexy. Look at me.”

Reluctantly, he pulls his eyes away from the ceiling.

Kent is smiling at him. He shakes his head and folds his arms, leaning against his locker. “I can’t believe it.”

Will feels his face flushing. “Can’t believe what?”

“You’re on the hook,” Kent mutters, smirk widening. “You’re really falling for him.”

“Oh, cut the gas,” Will replies, but he knows his blush is not helping his case. “That’s none of your business.”

“Actually, as your best friend, I think it is.” Kent winks at him. “And I, for one, am glad you’re getting some of that curly tail.”

“I will  _ kill _ you.”

“I’d like to see you try.” Kent tosses his hair. “Get back to work, big boy.”

When he gets back out to the dining room, Derek is sitting at the bar.

Will’s eyes widen when he meets his gaze. Derek smiles gently, and in that moment Will thanks God and every angel and all the heavens he struggles to believe in, because he’s sitting there with a notebook, whole and unharmed and not in jail or worse, smiling at Will across his bar. The surge of relief that passes through him is incomprehensible.

But— what’s he doing here?

“Shouldn’t you be painting?” Will asks, as something of a greeting, as he pours him a glass of water.

“Done for the day,” Derek replies, reaching to pull a few napkins out of the napkin-holder. “Can I bother you for an order of fries? I’m  _ starving _ .”

Will nods. “Sure thing,” he says, and when he gets back to the bar after putting the order in, there’s a napkin under Derek’s water glass, with its larger side facing towards Will’s side of the bar. There’s a note on it, scrawled in one of Derek’s fancy pens.  _ We’re all good _ , it says, and, under it,  _ I’m sorry. _ There’s a tiny heart drawn in the corner.

Will smiles before he throws it away behind the counter.

On his check, thirty minutes later, Will writes,  _ Come over after my shift. _

They spend the whole evening holed up in Will’s house.

Will holds him tighter than he has yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and yell at me there or in the comments! I love you all so dearly. This story is my heart.


	24. talk me down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends! First, a quick announcement: Wednesday updates are the norm for now, but when my remote instruction college classes end for the semester (in about a week and a half), I'm going to be writing ahead in this story quite a bit, so updates could get more frequent. I do want to get content out as quickly as possible, so you can read the rest of the story faster than on a once-a-week basis. I'll keep you posted!  
> Otherwise, please do know, in content warning news, that this chapter contains a narrator-POV depiction of a panic attack. This chapter is in fact another of my favorites in the whole story, and I hope you enjoy.

_ June 16th, 1961 _

_ Day 70 In Good Haven _

Derek’s car won’t start.

At first, he thinks it’s a fluke. He heads out to his car bright and early this morning, because he’s picking up the paint for the exterior of the inn from the hardware store. He’s been back and forth to the place a few times, and he’s pretty sure the family that owns it are vaguely and distantly related to Will. He’s pretty sure they like him, because he and Eric are single-handedly funding their paint department.

This morning, he’s on a mission, and he’s sufficiently calmer than he was earlier this week. Now that he knows he and Will are still safe, it’s onward and upward. Or at least onward. His state of living is at a relative stagnation right now— but at least he has Will. They’re meeting at the pond tomorrow night for some kind of a picnic dinner. It’s one day at a time, and everything is chill.

Until his car doesn’t start.

He jiggles the keys in the ignition and tries again. The engine makes a sad little noise, like it’s hyperventilating under the pressure to start.

_ Shit.  _ Is his battery dead? Maybe Eric can give him a jump start.

This is why he fucking hates driving.

“Yo, uh… Eric?” He leans through the front door. “Do you have jumper cables around, by any chance?”

“Jumper cables?” Eric is in the kitchen, because when is he not in the kitchen. “Is your car battery dead?”

“I— yeah, I think so.”

But it’s not his battery. Or at least Eric’s attempt at a jump start isn’t effective towards his battery. They try to start his car a handful of times while he’s hooked up to Eric’s, and they only give up for fear of making the problem worse, whatever it is.

“ _ Shit _ ,” he mutters, standing next to Eric in the parking lot. Eric closes the hood of his own blue truck. “So much for the hardware store.”

“Well, you can borrow my car this morning,” Eric says. “Lord knows I have nowhere to be.”

“Oh.” He pauses, eyes the thing. It’s a vintage, pale blue pickup— well, it’s not vintage  _ now _ , but it would be, in Derek’s day— and he does  _ not _ trust himself behind the wheel of it. “I don’t know if you should trust me to drive your car.”

“Why not?” Eric grins. “City boys don’t drive trucks?”

“We definitely don’t.” Derek pauses. “I— what do you think’s wrong with mine?”

“I have no idea, honey,” Eric mumbles, with a shake of his head. He wraps the jumper cable into a coil and returns it to his trunk. “That’s not my arena. But you could call Will Poindexter.”

Logically, he knew this was coming. Will really  _ is _ the unofficial town handyman. Since they started dating, Derek has heard countless stories of people calling him to fix their stuff, from appliances like the ill-fated Betsy to all types of vehicles to machines and household damage. He’s even seen it in action a few times.

And it’s not that he  _ won’t  _ call Will about this, or that he doesn’t want to. Derek just kind of feels like the Boy Who Cried Handyman. His radiator business is coming back to bite him in the ass.

“You’re right,” he replies. “He’s handy.”

*

The problem with Will working on his car is this: on the one hand, he’s frustrated and annoyed about the fact that his car isn’t working in the first place. On the other… Will in full handyman mode.

It’s distracting.

He’s wearing a button-down, in the middle of June, but at least it’s just cotton and not a flannel. It’s muted blue and plaid, with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and one of his hats thrown on backwards (Derek wishes it were his green one) completes the look. He chews at the side of his lip as he hunches over the popped hood of Derek’s car. He has absolutely no business looking this hot, and yet.

But they’re in public. As in, they’re in the parking lot at Bittle’s. And Eric is literally standing five feet away. So… that’s a bit of a problem.

“Thanks for coming over,” Derek says, leaning against the side of his dysfunctional vehicle, with as much chill as he can muster. “I appreciate it.”

“‘Course,” Will replies, not looking up from the inside of the hood. “So you tried a jump start, and that didn’t work?”

Derek nods, and from behind him, Eric chimes in, “We tried for twenty minutes, must’ve been. Thing just wouldn’t kick to life.”

“Huh.” Will frowns. “What about the alternator?”

Derek is trying not to stare at his forearms. “I wish I knew what that was.”

“You’re a licensed driver,” Will deadpans, “and you don’t know what an alternator is?”

“ _ Christ _ , Will, sue me,” he says. “I live in New York City. Driving my car isn’t really a frequent activity.”

“Well.” Will grunts a little. “You got yourself here.”

“By accident.”

Will shoots a glance up at him, and Derek  _ knows _ it says something, somewhere in those fiery eyes, but Eric is too close by for him to try and find out what subtle message is hiding in Will’s expression. It looks something like,  _ You’re a wiseass. _

Derek’s back is to Eric, so he smirks at Will openly.  _ I know _ .

“Well, I’ll leave you two to it,” Eric says, borderline nervously. “Try to get along, won’tcha?”

“We will,” Will mumbles, and then, “Thanks, Eric.”

Derek watches him go, across the parking lot and through the front door. He throws one more look their way before disappearing back into the inn. When Derek turns to look back at Will, he snorts a little and remarks, “I think Eric thinks we hate each other.”

“To be fair,” Will says, with his eyes still on the car, “I used to want to hate you.”

Derek sticks his tongue out. “Asshole.”

This time, when Will catches his glance, he flashes the tiniest smile.

Derek lets him mess around inside the hood for a few minutes, leaning against the side door and soaking up the sun on his face. When Will lets out a groan and looks up to take his hat off, running his sooty hands through his hair, Derek takes it as his cue to ask, “So, like… can you fix it?”

“I don’t even know what’s  _ wrong _ with it,” Will replies. His voice is a little strained in what sounds like self-frustration, and he takes a pause with his hat in his hands.

Then he tucks the hat backwards onto his head again, folds his arms, and fixes himself with what looks like determination. “But,” he adds, “I can try.”

Derek exhales. “Thank you, Will.”

“Of course.” He tilts his head at the inside of the hood, then shakes it. “Everything is just so…  _ new _ in here, all sleek and gadgety—”

Then Will stops himself abruptly, like he’s realized something. His eyes widen a little, and he’s quiet for a few seconds. Derek is about to ask what he’s thinking when he says, “I know what’s wrong with the car.”

“Chill,” Derek says. “What’s up?”

Will meets his eyes, a vague anxiety swimming in his expression, and says, with hushed urgency, “It’s too new.”

It takes Derek a second. He doesn’t know what he means until Will adds, “Like your phone.”

_ Oh. _

Derek’s stomach drops.

“ _ Yo _ .” He surveys the car. “Do you think so?”

Will grimaces. “I’d put money on it.”

Derek’s technology is giving out on him.

*

_ June 17th, 1961 _

_ Day 71 In Good Haven _

He’s okay about it for just over another twenty-four hours.

Because, like. Not having a car  _ sucks _ , when it comes to needing to go out and buy things, and it  _ extra _ sucks when he realizes it throws an extra layer of complication into seeing Will— but it’s manageable. It’s not the very worst thing that could happen. Downtown is  _ technically _ walking distance, even if it takes twenty minutes to get there. And it’s not even like he was that big of a fan of driving anyway.

So he lasts about a day. And then everything comes crashing down.

He and Will have finally made it to the pond, both worn-out from long days painting in the sun and at the diner, respectively. Will brings two separate blankets, throwing one down in the bed of his truck and wrapping the other around the both of them as they curl up in it. Derek feels a little like he’s in a country-western music video, but then again, those don’t usually feature gay couples, so, like.

For a little while, it’s okay. They sit in the truck bed, de-brief their days, and look at the rising moon across the pond. A literal symphony of crickets sings around them. Derek’s head is tucked into Will’s chest, and Will’s fingers are in his hair.

And then Derek feels it coming.

He can always detect them a little before they actually start. They’re like a toxic fog on the horizon, poised to get you with some but little warning time. It’s a tinge at the back of his mind, a vague sense of unease. That’s always how it begins.

A wave of nausea passes through his stomach.

It’s been awhile since he felt like this.

When he was younger, he used to think it was normal. He’d lock himself in his room at twelve years old and try to usher himself through it, not wanting to bother or burden his parents— if they were even home at all, which, usually, they weren’t, and being alone in the brownstone would  _ always _ make it worse. He thought everybody felt like this now and then, that everybody occasionally had moments where they descended into panic so tangible and untraceable that they felt like they were genuinely going to die.

It wasn’t until Andover, until he walked himself to the campus health center at midnight on a Tuesday and told the night-shift nurse he was certain that something awful was going to happen because he couldn’t stop shaking and he felt sick to his stomach— it wasn’t until then that someone said the word  _ anxiety _ and it all fell into place.

It took years of different medications, of therapists and coping techniques and natural remedies, for Derek to nail down an effective method for dealing with the panic attacks. And even then, even under all the medication, even with the breathing exercises and aromatherapy and ways to talk himself down— even then it would sometimes dive-bomb him, appear whether or not there was a trigger that set him off, ruin his brain from the inside out.

It’s been at least two months since he had a full-on panic attack, and even longer if he doesn’t count the confused panic from when he realized he was stuck in the past.

Something tells him that’s about to change.

He shifts against Will’s side, tries to ground himself in the warmth of him, in the strength of his arms and chest. When he tries a deep breath, it catches somewhere in his throat.

Sometimes this happens for no reason at all. Tonight, he knows that’s not the case. He knows because he’s been thinking about it, has been going over and over the very reason that has now driven him to feeling like this.

It’s— his car. It’s the fact that everything he owns that links him to the future, to his own time, to his  _ life _ , has been giving out on him.

Like, he’s been here for  _ two months _ — and he knows two months is only, like, two weeks in real-world time, but two weeks is a long time to drop off the face of the earth, especially when you made a promise to your best friend that you’d be home within three days and that was a whole entire  _ month  _ ago, and now your  _ car _ won’t even start and you have no way of getting home— and—

And he’s stuck here, and he—

Will, at least for now, seems oblivious. His fingers play around the bottom of Derek’s undercut, where his curls have been growing in more and more, since it’s been forever since he got a proper haircut. Derek tries to focus on the steady rise and fall of Will’s chest as he breathes, a soothing rhythm, or at least it should be, but it doesn’t work. His stomach churns, like he might throw up, but his anxious nausea never takes him  _ that _ far; it just tortures him with abdominal aches.

_ Okay, Derek. You have to chill _ .

But how can he chill? This is  _ real _ — this is a real situation he’s gotten himself stuck in, and, like, sure, he’s been writing and now, more recently, painting too, and dawdling around town, and there’s Will, too, of course there’s Will, but there are people back home who must be wondering about him, or at least there’s one person, because Chowder could be totally freaking out right now, and Derek would have  _ no idea _ , because he can’t get in touch with him—

And Jayda is going to drop him from his contract, he’s sure of it now, because what kind of a client says they’re taking a vacation and then goes completely radio silent when he’s already on a warning that he needs to produce? So if he ever even figures out how to get back home, he’s not going to have an agent anymore—

And there’s  _ school _ , his dissertation, everything he’s been working so hard on, everything his parents never believed he was capable of, and it’s all on hold because he can’t figure out how to get  _ home _ and he’s  _ stuck here _ —

There’s a cramp in his stomach and his heart is thumping and he feels, in this moment, like the panic is going to consume and kill him.

He swallows, then, through the anxious haze, does the only thing left that he can think to do. “Will?”

“Mm?” Will sounds completely at ease, and Derek fucking hates himself for the fact that he’s about to burden him with changing that.

“I’m unwell,” he says, and he hates how strained his voice sounds.

But Will must get the message, because he, too, shifts the way he’s sitting, and moves to look down at him. “What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

“I—” God,  _ fuck _ , maybe this was a bad idea. He has no idea what he should even  _ say _ . He can barely collect the words from the swirling thoughts in his racing mind. “I just.”

“Derek?” Will’s voice is more concerned now. He touches his forehead, like he’s checking his temperature. “Are you going to be sick?”

“No— no, not like that.” He shakes his head, then all of a sudden he’s hyper-aware of how much he’s shaking, and maybe it’s only started just now, but Will definitely notices  _ that _ , because there’s more alarm in his voice when he speaks again.

“You’re shivering,” he says. “Are you cold?”

While Will pulls the blanket tighter around the both of them, Derek shakes his head. He’s pressed against his shoulder, and Will is warm and smells like pine and his house, and he tries,  _ God _ , he tries really hard to just take a few deep breaths like his therapist would tell him to, but—

But he can’t fucking breathe. Oh  _ God _ . This is worse than it’s been in a long, long time.

He needs something to hold onto.

“Will,” he says, “could you— could you just hold my hand for a second?”

“Of course.” Will is gentle as he laces their fingers together, like Derek is fragile and he might break him, but Derek needs him to be anything but. He pulls Will’s hand to his face and squeezes as tight as he can.

“Der,” Will mumbles. His voice is smaller, but just as concerned. “What do you need?”

Derek’s breath comes out hitched. “Just this,” he manages. “Just this for now.”

“Okay.” Will returns the squeeze to his hand, and shifts a little so he’s facing him more; Derek has the sudden urge to crawl right into his lap and root himself there, but he’s shaking too hard and his insides hurt too much to even move at all.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I—”

“Don’t apologize,” Will tells him. He sounds confused now, along with his alarm. “Did something happen?”

“No—” Derek squeezes his eyes shut.  _ Fuck, fuck fuck.  _ “Well, yes, but— but it wasn’t you—”

“Hey.” Will squeezes his hand again. “Try to breathe.”

And  _ God _ , is he fucking trying. But he feels like he’s underwater, and he’s going to drown.

Will’s other hand returns to his hair, then moves to his side, where it rests firm and strong near his hip, and the touch is grounding even while he’s shaking so hard. He breathes with his eyes closed. In and out and in and out. Maybe he should use one of his coping exercises. Maybe he should drink some water. Maybe he should—  _ Will _ .

He needs— “Will,” he mumbles, “I. I think—”  _ Fuck, just breathe.  _ “I think I need more; I— do you mind— can I ask—” He can tell his verbal stumbling is just causing Will more alarm, so he tries to exhale, a sharp thing that comes out all at once. When his voice returns, it’s pathetic and small. “Hold me?”

Will nods. He springs into action like a soldier. “Yeah,” he says, “of course,” and then he pulls him into his lap, and Derek settles against his chest, presses his face into the warm crook of his neck.  _ Breathe. You have to breathe. _

“It’s okay,” Will says. His fingers comb gently into his hair again; his other hand presses against the small of Derek’s back. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

Will kisses his temple, and all Derek can do is hold on for dear life.

*

The thing they don’t tell you about mental illness is this: in books and movies, it’s depicted like a means to an end, a way to allow people to comfort each other, a sob story that doesn’t fundamentally affect the life of the person who has it. And when you factor romance or dating into the picture, there’s this idea that a partner and the way you feel about them will be enough to cure you, to make the bad, scary illness go away. That if you like a person enough, and if you’re happy enough, then that will eclipse the mental illness. That love can fix it.

And God, Derek bought that at first. He judged his worth and his relationships based on how easily he was able to hide or suppress his mental illness when he was with them. If he was still sad, or still anxious, then obviously he wasn’t doing it right. Throughout his life, he’s watched relationships crumble because of his unrealistic expectations about what they’ll do to his brain.

He watched it happen with his first girlfriend, in high school, and he thought she was the one, he really did; he loved spending time with her and she was smart and serious and she cared about all the same things he did, and he thought if he loved her enough, if he poured enough of himself into their relationship, that it would fix him.

Then it didn’t. And he thought something was wrong with him. And as weeks turned into months, his mental health became a burden, not a way for them to comfort each other. It all came crashing down, and she broke up with him on one terrible, gray, depressive day.

_ Work on yourself _ , she told him.  _ You’re not in the right place to be dating right now. _

It wouldn’t be the first time. He’s done it again since then. And again. And again.

It’s not poetic, and it’s not cute, all it ends in are tears and guilt. God, the fucking guilt.  _ I’m so sorry _ , he said once, to Chowder, huddled with him in his Sharks-themed room in the Haus at Samwell.  _ You’re a really good friend, and— you’re helping me, and I’m sorry if it doesn’t seem like it, because you are— _

_ Nursey _ , Chowder had replied,  _ this isn’t about me. And you don’t have to apologize for the way you feel. _

Chowder is the only one who hasn’t left.

And he’s great— he’s the best friend Derek could ever ask for, but he  _ still _ feels guilty sometimes, burdening him with the weight of his brain.

It’s so much for him; he can’t even imagine what it’s like for another person.

No, relationships— romantic or otherwise— can’t fix mental illness. Nothing can.

But, Derek has tried to teach himself, that doesn’t mean they can’t  _ help _ .

It takes him a solid twenty minutes just resting in Will’s arms to no longer feel like he’s going to die. Will is patient and mostly quiet, hushing every now and then, squeezing him tight. The pressure helps; Will is big, and it’s effective; he usually does well with weight. He tries to root himself in the smell on his collar, in the way his hands feel on him, in the sound of his breathing.

It’s slow going. But eventually he convinces himself that there’s a way he can survive this panic attack. And once he’s got a handle on that, he can start to break down the other things.

It’s always slow like this. It’s far from ideal. But he’s so latched to Will that he feels like letting go of him will just start the process over.

“Okay,” he breathes against his neck, and then, for the first time in what feels like an hour but is probably only a handful of minutes, exhales normally.

“Are you okay?” Will whispers, voice somewhere near his ear.

“I’m.” Derek swallows. He tries to nod. “Getting there.”

“Do you, um.” Will pauses again. “Do you need to talk about it?”

There’s confusion in his voice, and all at once a torrent of delayed embarrassment washes over Derek— God, how fucking  _ pathetic _ , to completely come apart in front of him like this; Will probably doesn’t even know what mental illness  _ is _ —

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, because he always feels the need to apologize, at one point or another, when this happens. “I didn’t mean to, uh.”

“You shouldn’t apologize,” Will says before he can finish.

“I.” He nods. “Uh. Yeah. I— okay.”

So much for  _ chill _ .

He’s never been this vulnerable with a partner after a month of dating.

But then again, he’s never been in a relationship quite like this one before.

His movements always feel rickety, sluggish, when he’s coming down from an attack. He lifts his head off Will’s neck, unwinds his hand from under his arm. When he presses his lips to Will’s jaw, not really kissing but more just resting, Will leans into the touch.

Then, for a long time, it’s quiet. Derek’s brain is no longer on fire, but it’s definitely still smoldering.

“Der,” Will says, softly, after Derek has lost track of how long they’ve been sitting like that. “You’re cold.”

He  _ is  _ kind of cold, and Will must be able to feel it. But he’s also shaking residually for anxiety reasons. He’s content the way they are, but Will adds, “Maybe I oughta get you home, to the inn.”

It’s a simple, well-meaning statement, but it makes Derek’s stomach cramp up again, threatening to send his brain right back into a spiral. “ _ No _ ,” he says, forcefully, a little desperately.

“Oh,” Will says. “You’re— not ready to go yet?”

“I— I don’t—” He shakes his head. His heart is pounding even at the thought. That yellow room would be like a prison to his brain right now, all that space to overthink. “I don’t want to be alone right now, Will.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Will whispers, and then pauses for a moment. Derek wonders if he’ll have to beg him.  _ Please stay. _

_ Please don’t think I’m crazy. _

Then Will says, “Come home with me.”

Derek’s chest surges with relief. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Will replies, and that’s all he needs to say.

*

The steam curls up in a trail. Will pours from his kettle into a hand-painted red mug, holding the side of a teabag steady with his thumb. Derek follows the steam up from the cup to Will’s face; he’s biting his lip with knit brows, that concentrated expression characteristic of when he’s doing a job. He sets the kettle aside as he finishes pouring.

“There,” Will says, reaching for the spoon he’s placed next to the mug. He stirs a few times, then slides it across the table. “Maybe wait on it a minute or you’ll burn your mouth, but it should be ready otherwise.”

“Thank you, babe.” Derek wraps both hands around the base of the mug. The tea smells nice, soothing; it’s peppermint, Will told him, as he was digging for it in his drawers. Will’s house is warm and mostly dark, and Will flicks on the light toward the living room as he beckons for Derek to follow him there.

“We can listen to the radio,” he tells him, lacing his fingers in the hand of Derek’s that’s free and mug-less. “You can rest.”

“Thank you,” Derek breathes. He still feels a little like he’s moving in slow-motion, swimming through the air, fighting to breathe correctly. Will’s presence is grounding enough to numb his senses a little. He follows blindly, until they reach the couch, where Will turns a lamp on and the main light off. He walks to the radio, then messes with its dials until he lands on a station playing easy, gentle music. Derek holds the warm mug to his face, inhales its steam.

“How’s this station?” Will asks, in a soft voice Derek isn’t sure he’s heard on him before.

Derek nods. “Good,” he says, so Will walks to the couch and guides him down, and they rest.

First, Derek finishes his tea. It’s sweet and makes him drowsy, and he leans against Will’s side, who holds him tight and supervises until the mug is safely drained. When he finishes the last sip, Will takes it from him, gently, and puts it on the coffee table, then proceeds to maneuver him down, with careful, strong hands, until Derek can rest his head in his lap. He stretches out on the couch, and Will rests one hand in his hair, rubs his back with the other.

“Good?” Will asks.

“Perfect,” Derek breathes, and he closes his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

He presses his cheek into Will’s leg. There’s no sound but the droning music, and Will’s steady breath. The house is quiet and peaceful and  _ safe _ .

He must doze at some point, because he wakes some time later, vaguely aware that it must be late now, very late, maybe past midnight. He rolls over and opens his eyes, blinking a few times to see straight. Will is looking down at him, leaning against the arm of the couch.

“Hey, Der.”

“Hi.” Derek shifts, tries to sit up. Will catches him in his jerky motion, then lifts him to his eye level. Derek wants— he wants to kiss him. He wants to be held. He wants nothing but this.

He presses forward and gives him a kiss, just one, that he hopes will convey the overwhelming gratitude he feels. His brain is still smoldering, but he’s going to be okay. He’s not going to die.

With Will, he’s safe.

“Derek,” Will mumbles, pressing their foreheads together. He seems to choose his words carefully. “Would you like to stay here tonight?”

Derek nods. He can’t nod fast enough.

He can’t imagine being anywhere else right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and feel free to shout at me in the comments/in my tumblr ask box! I love you all, and I love this story. Thank you very much for reading. <3


	25. in the sun

_ June 18th, 1961 _

_ Day 72 In Good Haven _

Will gets a fitful rest, if you could call it rest. He’s in and out of sleep the whole time, fretting and worrying. In the morning, he has never been more grateful for the fact that it’s a Sunday.

Sunday means no alarm clock, which means Derek can wake up gently, curled in Will’s arms in the safety of his bed upstairs. They didn’t  _ mean _ , exactly, to fall asleep in the same bed, or at least Will didn’t think they would make it there when he brought Derek back to his house. In fact, he was prepared to sleep in his childhood bedroom, in the spare, small bed he was using, until eight years ago, until he finally made himself move into the empty master bedroom.

But that didn’t happen. Because Derek held tight to him, all night, like he didn’t want to let go, and when it came time to go to bed, Will watched him crawl under his own covers and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him alone all night.

And then, like he was reading his mind, Derek said,  _ Will? Lay with me? _

And he did.

This morning, he wakes up with Derek in his arms.

Will is pressed against him from behind; he can’t hold him tight enough or close enough. Derek wears borrowed pajama pants of Will’s and his own t-shirt, and his curls flop haphazardly on the pillow, less kempt than Will thinks he’s ever seen them. The sun is coming up outside the window, and the morning light frames him like a halo, a golden glow.

He looks, thank God, peaceful in the morning light. In sleep, all the strain and panic from last night has melted away. He breathes steady and slow, and his skin is warm, and he’s okay. He’s safe.

In his own half-asleep state, Will is so focused on looking at Derek that it takes him longer than it should to have the most obvious thought, namely,  _ Derek is in my bed. _

Because he is. Derek is in his bed, and he’s never shared a bed with anybody, and oh, sure, they didn’t  _ go the whole way _ last night or anything; aside from a few gentle kisses before they slept, they barely did anything at all, because it’s not like Derek was in a state to— but still— all the same— Derek is in his bed.

He exhales, runs his thumb just gently along the crook of Derek’s elbow.

He likes the way he looks here. Too much. More than he should.

He has no idea what happened last night. The closest thing he’s seen to what happened to Derek is with Kent, a few awful, painful nights in high school, when other boys would beat him to a pulp for the things Kenny wasn’t careful about hiding. Will would find him in alleys, or in dark corners of the rink after hockey games, black-eyed and shaking and cursing about how it wasn’t fucking fair. They’d ride their bikes home together, hole up in Will’s room, and if Kenny let a few tears leak, Will never said a word to anyone. To see his best friend hurting was painful in a way he couldn’t describe.

And maybe,  _ maybe _ , there was one other time— with Pa, in the truck, out on an errand, when the truck backed up and made a loud noise, and Pa shut down for a few minutes, completely helpless and non-communicative. He’d hear him fretting to Ma sometimes at night, in those years between the war and when he was sent away again— but Will only witnessed that distress once.

But Derek… what happened last night with Derek, Will thinks, was different than Kenny’s or Pa’s hurt. Because with them, there was always a clear, traceable cause. There were and are reasons people hurt Kenny, and plentiful reasons for his reactions to that hurt. Pa had his reasons too, as much as Will didn’t want to think about or conceptualize them as a teenager.

If there was a reason for what happened to Derek last night, Will has no idea what it is.

Maybe it has to do with what he said his first night over Will’s, at dinner.  _ I was sick _ , he told him, so matter-of-fact, and Will asked,  _ Are you better now? _

_ Mostly _ , he said.  _ It’s… not the kind of sick that goes away. _

Will wants, more fervently than he’s wanted anything in a long time, for Derek to be okay.

He holds him tight and close against his chest, presses a kiss to the back of his neck. Derek shifts a little in his arms, and he worries for a moment that he’s woken him with the gesture, but when he checks, his eyes are still closed and he’s still peaceful.

It’s the hour, he knows, that he would be getting up were this a normal Sunday morning on his own. But all he has to do today are chores around the farm, and nowhere in his unspoken schedule does it forbid sleeping in a little more on a Sunday.

So Will rests.

*

Derek wakes to sunlight.

It takes him a moment— more than a moment— to remember where he is. His sense of touch comes first, the warm, safe feeling of being grounded in a mattress, like you’re a rock content never to budge for tens of thousands of years. Enveloped in blankets and enclosed in a strong pair of arms, he’s pressed against a warm body from behind, a thumb strokes just gently at the crook of his elbow. His mind is foggy—  _ so _ foggy, like some kind of anxiety hangover— but one thought emerges clear as he opens his eyes to warm morning light.

_ Will _ .

He blinks a few times, looks down at the arms around his waist. Well-built, freckled arms cradle him tightly; large hands press against his chest and forearm. He’s not sure exactly when he fell asleep, because everything after getting home to Will’s last night feels like a hazy, snuggly, peppermint-tea-flavored blur, but this morning he’s the little spoon, and Will is doing a  _ good _ job of being the big one. Derek can feel his breath on the back of his neck, warm and steady. His sheets smell like him.

Derek exhales.

He’s okay.

Will’s thumb stops rubbing at his elbow, and Derek feels him shift a little, move his head forward like he’s checking on him. “Derek?”

Derek nods. His voice comes out groggy, but he manages, “Awake.”

He rolls over, or at least makes an earnest attempt at doing so. Will helps him along, catches him in his arms. When he gets a good look at him, he thinks maybe he might melt right into the sheets.

Will’s hair is short, but the sight of him with bedhead is still entertaining; the front of it is all messed up, matted where it’s usually at least a little sideswept. He has a pillowcase imprint on his left cheek, and his lips look chapped. The morning light is the color of his eyes. He’s a human inferno, but this morning, his sharp edges are all soft.

“Good morning,” he whispers, and his morning voice is low-pitched, raspy.

Derek might be falling in love with him.

Which would be relatively inconvenient for a number of reasons.

“Hi,” he says, and reaches for the sheet-crease on Will’s cheek. He rubs his finger, just gently, along a trail of freckles next to it, and curls the fingers of his other hand around Will’s hip.

“I’m sorry for—” But then he stops, because he’s not entirely sure what he wants to apologize for. The act of panicking itself? Staying over probably long before they’ve been together long enough to do so? The absolute mess last night’s date turned into, because of him?

And then, as if Will can hear the disquiet in his head, he says, “Der, I don’t think you have to be sorry for anything.”

“Well, I.” He pauses. Takes a steadying breath. Breathing is  _ so much  _ easier now, than it was last night. “Maybe not, but I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Will says. “Unless you want to share it.”

Derek does want that, he realizes. “I’d like to tell you.”

“Okay.” Will nods. He presses a chaste kiss to his lips, and Derek is only vaguely self-conscious about morning breath. “Over breakfast?”

Derek smiles a little, inches forward on the pillow. Will’s hands brace against the small of his back. He can’t remember the last time he felt this small in somebody’s arms. “You’re making me breakfast?”

“Well.” Will grins, too, just slightly. “I can’t exactly invite you over and  _ not _ offer you something to eat.”

“You made me tea last night.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Okay, Eric.”

Will snorts, and the sound itself makes Derek laugh, too. They curl into each other’s arms, laugh for a moment, and when they sober, Derek finds eye contact again.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Will kisses the gratitude away from his lips.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says, when they pull away, and for once, Derek shuts up and listens.

*

_ June 25th, 1961 _

_ Day 79 In Good Haven _

Something changes, after that night.

It’s not something monumental, not earth-shattering, not a fundamental alteration of their entire relationship. But there’s a closeness, a vulnerability, that maybe wasn’t there before. Will feels a need to keep Derek safe, not in a patronizing way but in a very baseline, stabilizing way, a constant looking-out for his comfort and calm. Over breakfast— eggs and toast, nothing all that fancy— that morning, Derek lays it out for him, explains it to Will as best he can.

All his life, he says, he’s struggled with anxiety. It springs itself on him in bouts, sometimes set off for a reason and other times completely random. His episodes— panic attacks, he calls them— render him shaky, nauseous, freezing cold. He’s been through counseling for it, was hospitalized, even— that’s the reason, he explains, that he said he was sick, back when they were talking about their families a few weeks ago.

There’s no cure for it, he tells him. But he’s grateful for the way Will helped him. And he hopes he doesn’t see him differently, or think he’s crazy, but he would understand if he does.

Which— of  _ course _ Will doesn’t think he’s crazy, and he tells him as much immediately, that morning over breakfast. All he wants is to ensure, in whatever way he can, that Derek has someone in his corner when it happens.

_ You and me,  _ he tells him, linking their pinkies across the breakfast table, and Derek nods.

His smile is tired, but it’s there.  _ You and me. _

And life goes on. This time, Derek mentions to him, was set off by his car, which, really, makes a lot of sense— because it’s alarming to Will, too, this notion of Derek’s evidence of the future breaking down around him.

Will is supposed to fix things, and he has no idea how to fix this for him.

The only thing he can do is be there, and that’s what he resolves to do.

He gets himself through a busy week at work and on the farm, waits for another Sunday to roll around, and brings Derek home. “Do you have an agenda?” he asks, on Will’s arm, as they walk across the green grass of the lawn.

“An agenda?” Will grins at him. “What, like the president?”

Derek shrugs. The sunshine is in his curls, and it’s the perfect summer day. “Something like that.”

“Well, maybe I do,” Will says, “but I can’t say it involves all that much but sitting with you, to be honest.”

“Aww, Dexy.” Derek presses a kiss to his cheek. “I’m turning you into a real softie.”

They sit on a blanket in the center of the yard. There’s just the slightest breeze, and not a cloud in the sky. Derek is armed with a blank notebook, and as for Will… he’s just content to sit in his company. That was something he never did, before Derek— he never took the time to just sit and enjoy an afternoon. It was always work and find more work and onto the next thing. Annie’s to farm to bed.

He realizes, as this thought comes to mind, that he’s been subconsciously dividing his life into  _ before Derek _ and  _ after Derek _ . He’s not sure how he should feel about it.

But the after-Derek part is full of all this newfound softness, this lightness in his chest that won’t seem to go away. When he looks at him, he sees happier days.

Derek flips to a fresh page in his notebook, and when he looks up at Will, he says, “Okay, dealer’s choice.” He sticks a pencil right into his curls next to his ear, then ruffles out the front of his hairline. Lately, he’s been saying he needs a haircut. Will suggested he could just go to Mike, the barber, in town, but Derek takes his hair very seriously, and, as quoted, doesn’t trust white people with it.

So here he is. Sticking pencils in it. Then again, he did that even from his earliest days in Good Haven.

Derek looks to him and finishes his thought. “What should I draw?”

“What should you  _ draw _ ?” Will echoes, then looks around to hunt for ideas. The cows are out grazing beyond the fence, and a few of the hens are wandering around the yard, as usual. When his eyes land on the oak tree, in the middle of the yard adjacent to the house, where his old tire swing used to be, he says, “Draw the tree.”

Derek studies it like a specimen. “That tree?”

“The oak,” Will replies, “yeah.” He pauses and grins a little, meeting Derek’s eyes. “Unless you’re not up for the challenge.”

“Oh, you’re  _ on _ , babe,” Derek replies. He leans forward to hunch over his notebook, unsheathes his pencil from his hair, and dives into drawing.

It’s nice, watching him draw, or watching him write. Will has gotten used to it, just sitting in this quiet while Derek scribbles in a notebook to his heart’s content. It’s Derek’s most peaceful state, he thinks— lost in his art, without another care. Knowing what he does now about Derek’s anxieties, about his manufactured ‘chill’ persona, about the ways in which his brain plagues him with hurt, Will has come to extra appreciate seeing him in this state. A Derek who is writing or drawing is a Derek who is at ease.

He’s an artist through and through, from his flowery language to his inspired brain to the inky art on his skin.

“I’ll have you know,” Derek remarks, as he draws, “oak trees are my favorite kind of tree.”

“What?” Will cranes his neck to look up at the tree by the house. It’s a good tree, a strong one, but it gets to be a real pain in the autumn and the spring when it’s constantly dropping stray leaves all over the garden and yard. “But they’re such a hassle.”

“ _ Yo _ , they’re  _ majestic _ ,” Derek replies. “Those shits are older than all of us.” He pauses for a moment, eyes still glued to the tree as he swipes his pencil effortlessly along his paper. It makes a nice scratching sound. “Actually, I bet,” he adds, “that in my time, that tree’s still standing right there, looking exactly the same.”

“I’ll bet you’re right,” Will replies. “And it’s still raining leaves on my garden.”

Derek chuckles. “Ch’yeah. It’ll torture you for all of time.”

Will sighs. “Fantastic.”

It’s an odd thought, as he stares over at the thing, its hulking trunk and big green canopy. To know that where Derek comes from, this tree is undoubtedly still standing, right where it is now, a natural constant untouched by human time.

But Will? He has no idea where he is in 2021. He’d be lucky to still be alive then; he’d be nearing ninety years old.

When Derek goes home, if he’s able to get home, who knows if Will will even be— God, he shouldn’t think about that. He doesn’t have room in his head to think about that.

For now, he has him, and that’s enough.

Derek draws on for quite some time. Will can tell when he’s done, because he sticks his pencil back behind his ear and grins proudly at the page. “What do we think?” he asks, turning the notebook so Will can see.

It’s perfect, of course. All his sketches look professional. From the details in the leaves and trunk to the sprawling roots, and even the little hook on the far branch where the tire swing hung formerly. Will wonders if he could get away with putting a hammock on that tree. Derek would love that— a place to lay in the shade on weekends, to read some of Pa’s old books from the study or just to fill his notebook to his heart’s content. It could be Will’s project next weekend, maybe. A hammock for Derek.

“I love it,” Will says of the drawing, and Derek’s grin widens.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” he replies, and before Will can stop him, he tears the page clean out of his notebook and hands it over across the small space between them. “Here.”

“Oh— Der,” Will mumbles, shaking his head at the outstretched drawing. “That’s yours. It’s part of your book.”

“Not anymore,” Derek says. “That’s why I tore it out.” He uses the surface of the notebook to write something with his pencil on the bottom of the page, then tosses it over to Will. It flutters and lands neatly in his lap, face-up. Derek has signed the bottom left corner. All it says is  _ D _ , with a heart next to it.

Will’s ears are warm. “Thank you,” he says. “I’ll put it up inside somewhere.”

“Wow.” Derek wears a proud smile. “High praise. You could stick it on your fridge, y’know. Like I made it at school.”

Will chuckles gently, reaching for a stone to weigh down the drawing so it won’t blow away. “I don’t have a magnetic refrigerator,” he replies. “But if I did, I would.”

Derek puts a hand over his heart. “I’m touched,” he says. “Thank you.”

Will smiles, and reaches for his hand. He kisses the tops of Derek’s knuckles, and Derek swoons at the gesture. Will holds his hand against his own face for just a moment, closing his eyes and basking in the feeling of this man’s touch on his skin.

To think, that just a month ago, a man had never touched him.

“Will,” Derek says, in a voice that’s become much softer all of a sudden. “Can I ask something?”

“Sure thing,” Will hums, and he feels he’s in something of a trance. The sun is warm, and Derek caresses his cheek, and he could just stay here forever, couldn’t he? Where’s the rush?

“Would you mind if I drew you?” At this, Will snaps his eyes open. Derek looks earnest, tender.  _ Beautiful _ . Always beautiful. He adds, “Not like one of my French girls. Just… can I draw you?”

This second part is odd. Will squints at him, and he wonders if he’s supposed to understand. “You… have French women?”

“ _ Oh _ —” Derek laughs and shakes his head. “Wait, no, sorry. That was— I just made a reference to a movie that hasn’t come out yet.”

“Oh.” Will chuckles a little. “I was confused.”

“It’s a  _ quality _ film.” Derek points his pencil toward him. “It comes out in… like, the nineties; I can’t remember what year. And just remember, when you watch it…” Derek’s voice dissolves into static, but whatever point he’s making must be one he feels strongly about, if his expression has anything to do with it.

Will shakes his head. “I didn’t catch the last part, Der.”

“Aw,  _ damn _ .” Derek sighs. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to wait until it comes out.”

Will isn’t sure he wants to think about the 1990s right now. He’d rather think about the 60s, with Derek by his side.

“But anyway, I’d…” Derek twirls his pencil between his hands. “I’d love to draw you, but only if you felt comfortable with it.”

Will’s face grows a little warmer, and he looks down at himself. He’s just in a cotton button-up and jeans, his works boots discarded by the edge of the blanket, leaving him in his socks. “I— like this?”

“Just like that.” Derek pauses. He looks poignant. “You look breathtaking.”

“ _ Derek _ .” Now Will is  _ very _ warm. He laughs out his name. “You can’t say those things.”

“What?” Derek leans sideways, sprawling himself out a little. He tosses his hair. “I’m not allowed to tell the truth?”

“Oh, cut the gas.” Will shakes his head. “You’re just trying to charm me.”

“ _ Wiiiiill _ .” Derek waves his pencil in the air. “I promise I won’t make it weird. I just want to draw you.” He pauses, looks at his notebook, and then adds, “Just for myself.”

Will takes a breath. Really, he has no problem with it— it’s just Derek, and it’s sweet, flattering, even, that he wants to do this. But he can’t help feeling just a bit self-conscious, too. He knows he’s not conventionally handsome. Derek seems to be working every day to get him to change his own mind.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Sure. Yes. Let’s… how should I—?”

“You don’t have to move at all, babe.” Derek shifts himself a little, licks his lips. “Just sit still. Just like that.”

“Okay.” Will tries to relax his body. He doesn’t want to be tense, immortalized in Derek’s book.

He trusts him, he realizes. This is vulnerable, maybe odd, and certainly something he’s never done before— but he trusts him.

It seems like the drawing takes a long, long time. With Derek’s eyes trained on him like this, different than any way he’s looked at him before, Will is certain that he’s redder than usual, which should really be horribly embarrassing but somehow isn’t, not like this, not with this tension hanging in the air. The scratch of Derek’s pencil on the page mingles with the other sounds of the outdoors, bird calls and the rustling of the breeze in the oak tree’s huge canopy.

Will’s heart is pounding, and he doesn’t know why. There’s an intensity in the way Derek is scrutinizing him.

He wants his hands.

_ God _ — he wants to be touched. He’s touched and seen more of Derek than he has anyone else before, and he wonders if it’s a little pathetic that they’ve barely done anything beyond kiss each other and yet it racks him with desire this way. He wants  _ more _ , he realizes. He wants Derek to touch him, to hold him. He wants his hands in places they’ve never been before.

Will tries to stay still.

After what feels like such a long while, Derek exhales at his page, nods a little, and returns his pencil to his hair. “I think,” he says, in a voice that breaks what must be at least a twenty-minute silence, “I’m done.”

Will shifts a little, finally, and leans forward on the blanket. “Do you mind if I look at it?”

“Not at all.” Derek leans in, too, and shows him the page. Will nearly recoils. The man Derek has drawn on the page is a work of art, someone worth looking at, a man Will will never be. He’s strong and lanky, staring sort of into the distance, his expression neutral but serious. His ears jut out a little, but they’re nowhere near as oversized as people always pick on him for. His freckles are just a detail, not an obnoxious stain on his skin.

“Derek,” Will almost laughs. “I don’t look like that.”

“What?” Derek squints. “Yes, you do.”

“I’m so…” Will pauses. Derek puts down the notebook and looks right at him while he waits for him to finish. “Normal-looking. In your drawing.”

“Oh, Will,” Derek murmurs. “You’re far from normal.”

Will raises his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

Derek reaches for him, and all at once there are warm hands on his waist. “Come here,” he whispers, “and I’ll show you.”

Will shudders when Derek kisses him, an involuntary thing that sends him melting into his arms. Derek’s kiss starts gentle, but Will winds his arms around his waist and the tune changes; all at once it’s urgent, heated, full of feeling that speeds Will’s pulse up.

Derek pushes, just slightly, with his palm against Will’s torso. It doesn’t take much; Will falls backwards, but he pulls Derek down with him. They land in the grass, and Will laughs. “You could’ve crushed me.”

“I definitely couldn’t have,” Derek replies, and then his hands are on Will’s hips and he’s kissing him tender and slow and Will doesn’t have a brain to think about much anymore.

Derek props over him, and he’s had this kind of fantasy, this feeling of being pinned to the ground by him— not that he’d ever admit it, or at least he won’t admit it right now, not out loud; the wordlessness of Derek’s kiss is a spell he doesn’t care to break— but this is where his mind goes late at night, in bed by himself, remembering the way it looked when he woke up next to Derek there, or when they lay on the couch and kissed for what must’ve been hours that first night he came over.

Will  _ wants _ . He’s never wanted something so much.

Derek’s shirt is inching up his torso, and it’s unfair, because Will’s hands dance around the warm skin on his waist, but he feels like he’s waiting for some kind of invitation that doesn’t come. He wonders, between kisses that short out his thinking, if he should just go forward with it, just run his hand along the smooth skin of his back, inch his fingers up to places they’ve never gone before—

— and then, as if through his kiss he can read his thoughts, Derek’s hand makes a move up Will’s waist under his button-down.

It’s the simplest touch, but Will wants more. How can he show it? He slides his hands further up Derek’s torso, and Derek hums a little against his mouth.

“What?” he asks, when they break away just enough to speak. “Is that okay?”

“That’s more than okay,” Derek murmurs, in a voice that sends another shiver through Will. In one swift motion, he tips back a little, reaches for the bottom of his own shirt, and then— before Will can even realize what he’s about to do— takes it clean off.

Will’s mouth runs dry. His torso is something out of a sculpture museum, all rippled muscle and smooth skin that gleams like marble in the sun. Against his ribcage scrawls the tattoo he’s mentioned so many times, but Will has never seen. He reaches up to grace his fingers against it, and his breath catches in his throat.

Derek is  _ smirking _ , sitting there straddled on Will’s hips. “Like what you see?”

Will would tell him he’s being a narcissist if he weren’t so completely  _ lost _ in the sight of his body.

He’s just. All of his words are gone.

He pulls him close again, and as they kiss, he feels Derek fumble for the buttons on his shirt now. He gets all the way down them in a flash, like he’s a professional at this, and pushes his shirt away as he presses kisses to his collarbone. Will’s hips jump, completely involuntarily, and all at once, he’s aware of Derek’s leg. It rests between his thighs, and there’s friction there that sends his mind racing, blood rushing. Has it been there the whole time? He has no idea.

But there is  _ so much _ to look at with Derek’s shirt gone, and so many places for Derek to put his mouth now that he’s disposed of his own, and it’s skin on skin and it’s heat and passion and—

He is going to get carried away.

*

It doesn’t escalate further, because Will taps out. He wants him so badly, but he’s not ready yet, not all the way.

So they kiss, and they feel each other’s skin, and some time later, when they’re laying together in the grass, still shirtless, a little out of breath, Will notices a purple blotch in the shape of Derek’s mouth on his collarbone.

“Der,” he whispers. “You marked me.”

Derek traces over it with his thumb. There’s a world of pride in his smile. “I guess I did,” he murmurs. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” Will breathes, and he closes his eyes, lets the warm sun rain down on the both of them.

“Chill.” Derek kisses his neck. Will does not have the energy to scold him for saying ‘chill’. “I like the way you look, like that.” He pauses. “Under me.”

Will likes himself that way, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr or shout at me in the comments! As always, thank you very much for reading. By the way, this is going to start getting spicy. I hope y'all don't mind. We had to earn the 'mature' rating eventually.


	26. independence day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're more than halfway there, folks! :D And my exams end tomorrow, so stay tuned for that more-than-once-weekly update schedule. I'll be writing a whole lot of the rest of this, very soon!!!

_ July 1946 _

“Rise and shine, Junior!”

Will wakes facing the window in bed, with the sunlight near blinding him. He blinks, shields his eyes, and rolls over a little, waiting for his vision to adjust. Ma and Pa must have let him sleep in.

But his allotted time must be over now, because Pa is in the doorway. He’s dressed in his uniform, and there’s a big smile on his face. “C’mon, now,” he continues, his voice a little softer now. “You don’t wanna be late for the parade, do ya?”

Will sits bolt upright in bed. “The parade!”

Gee, how could he have forgotten?

It’s Independence Day, one of his favorite days of the year. They host a yearly parade down in Bar Harbor, and it’s been three summers since Will got to see Pa march in it. Today changes that. Pa is home, and it’s summertime, and everyone is together, and everything is good. It’s Kenny’s birthday, too, so he and Annie usually tag right along with them. After the parade, they’ll go see his uncles in Bar Harbor, and spend the evening down by the beach if he’s lucky.

He can already smell the saltwater.

“Ready in a flash, Pa,” he says, as he flies out of bed and to his dresser. “When d’ya reckon we’re leaving?”

Pa glances at his pocket watch. “Well…” He pauses. “Maybe I oughta ask your ma. She sent me to get’cha up.”

“I’ll be ready,” Will promises. “In a jiffy.”

Pa grins and tips his hat at him. “I’ll pass along the message,” he says, and then strolls back down the hall toward his and Ma’s room, whistling some old sea shanty as he goes.

Will’s outfit for the day is already laid out. It’s a suit like Pa’s old whites, before the war, when he was an enlisted— cap and all. Ma sewed it for him, and Will wears it on special occasions.

_ Aw, look at you _ , say the ladies in town.  _ You look just like your papa. _

It fills him with pride every time.

*

_ July 4th, 1961 _

_ Day 88 In Good Haven _

Will wakes to the telephone ringing.

In his half-asleep state, he immediately panics. He’s slept in. He’s missed the start of his work shift. Kenny is going to kill him. Even worse, Annie will be disappointed. He’s not the kind of employee who sleeps through shifts. What’s gotten into him?—

But then— he sits up in bed. Rubs his eyes.

Remembers. It’s July the fourth.

_ Oh, thank God. _

The diner is closed today. It would be anyway, but as an added motivation, today is Kenny’s birthday. His twenty-sixth. Will has to call him. Is that him right now, on the phone?

It’s still ringing. He gets out of bed and walks downstairs in a hurry so he can catch it before it stops. He gets it on what might be the last ring. “Hello? Will Poindexter.”

“Junior!”

Will freezes, half-hunched over the phone.

“It’s your uncle, Tommy.”

He tries not to exhale too sharply. “Uncle Tommy,” he repeats. “Hi. How are you?”

“I’m doing just swell, Junior, and how are you?” Tommy’s voice is friendly; it always is. There’s nothing about him that should set off the visceral reaction Will feels in his stomach.

“I’m well,” he replies, finally. “Happy Independence Day.”

“Thank you!” Will can  _ hear _ his uncle’s smile. “Say, how’ve you been? We’ve missed ya over here.”

He hasn’t seen Uncle Tommy since— well, Christmas, it must’ve been, when he drove down to deliver cookies and a few small gifts to his meager remaining family, feeling ill all the way to Bar Harbor and itching to get home as soon as he arrived. His family themselves, they’ve never been the cause of that hurt— aside, of course, from the way he hears Pa in Uncle Charlie’s laugh or sees his dimple in Uncle Tommy’s smile— but no, the reason has much less to do with them than it does with the huge, open mass of sea that lies mere miles from their houses.

And to think, he used to love the ocean.

“I’m just fine,” he says, distantly aware that this is the second time they’ve exchanged pleasantries in less than a minute. He wonders how to ask why he’s calling without sounding rude. He’d never want to be rude to his uncle. He just…

He doesn’t know how to connect with his extended family anymore. He’s been so distant from them for such a long time.

He feels bad for Uncle Tommy, that he even still tries.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Tommy replies. “Say, we’re having a little cookout down here later tonight. I wanted to see if you’re busy. If you aren’t, you’re welcome to join us.”

Will squeezes his eyes shut, but doesn’t react otherwise for a moment. Part of him knew this was coming. Another part of him had blocked it out of his brain, attempted to postpone thinking about it. It’s caught up with him. “That’s awful nice of you all,” he says. “Thank you.”

“I mean it, Junior,” Tommy says. “No pressure, ya hear? But you’re welcome to come and visit. I know you’ve got your hands full with the farm, but it can’t hurt to take off the Fourth of July, now, can it?”

Will sighs just gently, away from the receiver. He feels so, so bad for his uncle. “I really do appreciate that,” he says, and then repeats, “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Tommy pauses. “What’s new? Everything alright around the farm?”

“Everything’s going swell.” Will pinches his brow. What does he say?  _ I’m bringing a man around the house, and I’m not sure I could stand for you to catch even the smallest wind of it?  _ “Should be a good harvest.”

It’s the most painful small talk. This is his  _ family _ . But to think about seeing them means to think about Bar Harbor, Pa’s former place of work; it means to think about the ocean.

The conversation is relatively brief, but perfectly amicable. When they’ve hung up, with Tommy’s insistence that he’s welcome to drop by ringing in his ears, Will flops himself down onto the couch. He runs his hands through his hair and reclines, sighing at the wall across from him, at his parents’ pictures.

“Pa,” he mumbles, “I’m sorry. I wish—”

But he doesn’t know what he wishes. That he could go visit his uncles’ place without feeling the sharp sting of grief in his gut, without the nagging urge to just get back home as quick as he can? That he could stop the hurting from the past, the unrelenting memory of everything he’s lost?

That he could figure out how to reconcile the fact that he’s someone he knows his extended family would never approve of him being?

He exhales. “I don’t know if I can go visit them, Pa,” he says.

The house answers him with silence.

He hopes he isn’t disappointing him.

*

A pack of cigarettes. A jar of strawberry preserves. A pint of blueberries from the backyard. A dozen smooth, speckled, tan eggs.

Will packs it all into a basket and drives downtown, where he rings the buzzer at Kenny’s apartment around the backside of Annie’s. There’s a moment of quiet before the intercom crackles to life. “Uh, hello?”

“Kenny,” Will replies. “It’s me. Happy birthday.”

“Oh.” Kent laughs a little. “Hi, Dexy. Hold on.” The door clicks, and Will takes the stairs up to the apartment two at a time. When he gets there, Kent opens the door for him.

He looks…  _ exhausted _ , actually, but in mostly good spirits. Though dark spots encircle his eyes, and his hair is a mussed-up, just-out-of-bed mess, he’s on his own two feet and doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of critically self-destructive behavior, so… Will will take it. The window in the kitchen is open, and it looks like he’s cleaning up from breakfast.

“Good morning, big guy.” Kent grins at him, then nods to the basket as Will holds it out for him. “Wow, all for me?” he asks. “When did I get so lucky? Honey, you shouldn’t have.”

Will rolls his eyes, and lets Kent take it. “ _ Say _ , Dexy, you’re kissing up to me.” His grin widens, and he looks up to meet his eyes. “I’m telling Derek. He’ll be jealous.”

Will chuckles a little and tucks his hands to his pockets. “Go ahead and do that.”

Kent deposits the basket on the kitchen table, then smacks the bottom of one of the chairs. “Here,” he says. “Take a seat in my office. Let’s chat.”

Will makes his way over, then sits down in the seat. Kent wastes no time in opening the cigarettes, grabbing his lighter from the center of the table. “Chat about what?” Will asks.

Kent shrugs. “Who cares?” he replies. “We never get to chat anymore.”

Will rolls his eyes. “I see you every day at work, Kenny.”

“Not the same.” He reaches for the coffee pot on his counter. “Coffee?”

Will waves him away. “I’m alright,” he replies. “Thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” Kent refreshes a mug that looks like he was already using it, stirs in a copious amount of sugar and cream, and then sits across from him at the table. Smoke puffs into the air and catches the sunlight. Will hates the smell of it, but you’d be hard-pressed to separate Kenny from his smokes. “Now,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “We’ll have our chat.”

“I don’t understand what you want to chat about.”

Kent pushes the basket aside a little, then raises his eyebrows, like Will  _ should  _ know. There are a few seconds of quiet, and then he just sighs and says, “ _ Derek _ , you big dummy. What’s going on?”

“Oh.” Will’s stomach flutters. He hopes it doesn’t show on his face. Kenny would pick on him to high heaven. “What do you mean, what’s going on?”

“I  _ mean _ ,” Kent replies, “are you on the hook?”

Will rolls his eyes. “I did not come here to be made fun of.”

“You invited yourself into my palace, Dexy.” Kent spreads his arms out and gestures to the walls. “Now you have to face the consequences.”

Will sighs.

“So talk to me,” Kent continues. “You two have been… spending a lot of time together.”

“Kenny, it’s a little complicated.”

Kent arches an eyebrow. His trademark smirk remains. Even his cowlicks seem sarcastic. “Complicated how?”

“ _ You know how _ ,” Will replies. “He’s… he’s not— he’s not just any man.”

“He sure isn’t,” Kent remarks, all smiles, like this is exactly what he wanted him to say. “He’s  _ your  _ man.”

Will groans at the ceiling of the apartment. “ _ Kenny _ .”

Kent, for his part, doesn’t actually say anything for a few seconds. Will gets the feeling that he’s waiting for him to elaborate. Eventually, Kent holds out a hand, to help him along. “Okay, well, if that’s not what you meant,” he says, “then how is he not just any man?”

Kent can be so insufferable sometimes that Will wonders how he’s tolerated him for twenty-six entire years. He guesses that’s the thing about friends who may as well be family. You simultaneously can’t stand them and love them to death.

“I have no idea how he got here,” Will says, “and I have no idea how or when he’s going to get home. And every day he’s here, it makes me wonder more and more what’s ever going to happen. I mean, Kenny— he’s  _ stuck _ here, y’know? He can’t leave.”

Kent shrugs a little. “Maybe it’s a sign,” he says. “Maybe God sent him for you.”

Will arches both eyebrows. “When’s the last time you were at Mass again?”

Kent chuckles. He takes his cigarette out to blow a puff of smoke at him. “Touche.”

But he doesn’t stop there. Kenny wants to know more— why he’s been with him so much lately, if they’re being safe. Will has this feeling Kenny is trying to get him to say whether they’ve been to bed, which, of course he is; he’s  _ Kenny _ , he has a mind dirtier than a schoolboy— but even if they had been, Will isn’t sure he’d want to say.

That feels like something that he’d want to keep just between them.

And  _ God _ , has he been thinking about it.

Kent keeps prodding. Will entertains this for exactly five more minutes before all the talk about himself is making his ears turn red. During a pause, he shakes it out and folds his arms, scrutinizing Kenny. “Say,” he mumbles, “it’s  _ your _ birthday, isn’t it? How’d you get me talking about me?”

“What can I say?” Kent’s smirk is  _ gleeful _ . “When a boy’s in love, he’s all talk—”

“I’m not  _ in love _ , Kenny.” Will has no idea if he’s telling him the truth. It’s something he should really get around to figuring out.

Kent puts out his cigarette and drops the butt into the ashtray at the center of the table. “Okay. Whatever you say, lover boy.”

Will rubs his eyes. “Christ.”

Kent seems to get the message, because he mercifully pivots the conversation a bit. “What’re you doing today, anyway?” he asks. “Headed to Bar Harbor?”

Will’s stomach turns. “I don’t think so.”

“No?” Kent pauses a little, leans forward. “Why not?”

Will shakes his head. “Don’t feel up to it,” he says. “I’d… rather not talk about it.”

“If you say so.” God bless Kenny Parson.

“What about you?”

“Lunch with Mama.” Kent pauses. “And fireworks, at least I think. They’re setting them off in the park.”

“Oh.” Will pauses. He hasn’t given any thought to what the rest of his day would look like if he really  _ didn’t _ go see Uncle Tommy. “At what time?”

Kent shrugs. “Sunset?” He pauses, then grins a little. “Are you seeing him tonight?”

Will would certainly like to. “I have no idea.”

“You should.” Kent nudges him across the table. “Show him the fireworks.”

Maybe he will.

*

He ends up doing just that.

He arranges a rendezvous point with him, like they’ve been doing so much lately, and brings him to the pond, where the fireworks are faint over the treeline but the sound of them is clear. They lay in the back of the truck, curled into one another; Will holds his head against his chest.

They don’t talk much, until they do. Derek’s voice is quiet, and it must be the first sound in twenty minutes, aside from the fireworks’ booms. “Can I ask you something?”

Will is quiet a second before replying. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you go with your uncle today?”

Will winces. He told Derek about the invitation on the drive over here. He has no idea how to answer him, so he might as well just say so. “I don’t know,” he whispers. Derek shifts a little against his chest. “I just wanted… this. Instead.”

Derek hums. He presses a stubbly kiss to Will’s cheek. For a moment, he’s quiet again. Will thinks, at the park, that the finale might be happening, by the sound of it.

Then Derek shifts again. He graces his hand over Will’s chest, tucks himself in close, and finally asks, “Will, are you afraid of the ocean?”

If ever there were a random question, this is the definition of one. Will finds himself hesitating again. The mere mention of it makes his stomach turn, and the worst part is that this isn’t even the first time he’s felt like this today at the thought of it. “Why do you ask that?”

“Before we were together,” Derek says, “you told me you don’t like the ocean.” He pauses. “But… you have family on the coast.” Another pause. “So are you scared of it?”

“No,” Will says, which, at least, is true.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay,” Will murmurs. “We can.” He reaches for Derek’s arm and rests his own across it on his chest. Derek’s fingers curl around his wrist. Will leans into his touch, exhales a little.

_ Are you afraid of the ocean? _

He can close his eyes and see rolling blue waves, a ship heading out to sea, early-morning sunrises peeking in a blush of pink over the water. The memories are years old, but he knows them like the back of his hand.

It’s true he doesn’t like the ocean. But afraid of it? Never in a million years.

“Actually,” he tells Derek, “I used to  _ love _ the ocean.”

Derek’s thumb traces his forearm, and Will can’t believe that he  _ knows _ he’s connecting a trail of freckles. It’s too deliberate, with slight variance, to be a random line. His words, when they come, are a soothing hum. “You did?”

Will knows what this is. It’s an invitation to open up.

And for one of the first times in his life— each of them, he knows, initiated by Derek— he accepts it.

“ _ Yes _ ,” he says, almost too fondly, and he lets the past flood around him like a postcard from another life. “My… my uncle Tommy has a fishing boat, and my pa and my uncle Charlie would go out with him every summer,” he says, speaking slowly, taking his time. “The season started in June. Ma would take me down to the docks, and we’d see them off.”

(A boat fades on the horizon. Will, ten years old, clings to Ma’s hand, shoes suspended halfway off the battered wood of the dock, clinging to it with his gaze before it disappears completely.  _ Can’t I go with them, Ma? _ )

“I wanted to go with them  _ so _ badly.”

( _ Not yet, darling.  _ She squeezes his hand, which is still small in hers.  _ Just you wait. Soon enough you’ll be big _ .)

“We’d go down there a lot in the summer, too— just to visit my uncles and aunts and my cousins, or— for any reason, really,” he says. “My pa worked on a shipyard in Bar Harbor for a couple of years.”

( _ Papa’s home!  _ Five years old, Will runs to the door at the sound of familiar boots. Pa wears overalls and a tired smile, and when he scoops Will up for a hug, he smells like saltwater.  _ I missed you, Papa. _

_ I missed you, too. How was your day, Junior? _ )

“I wanted to be by the ocean. I even thought I’d move down there.” He pauses to laugh a little, at his childhood cluelessness. “Join the fishing business.”

( _ When I grow up, I’m taking over Mama’s diner.  _ Kenny is bright-eyed and thirteen, riding his bike down Main Street, pedaling double-time to keep up with Will and his much longer legs.  _ What are  _ you _ doing when you grow up, Dexy? _

Will feels the breeze on his face, but nothing in Good Haven is like an oceanside breeze.  _ Maybe fishing _ .)

“I got to go out and fish with them once, when I was fourteen. It was me, my pa, Tommy, Charlie, and my cousin. Sixteen days at sea.”

(Will stands on the bow as it cuts through the wide open water ahead. Spray pelts his face, and he laughs into the open sky.

_ Having fun up there, Junior?  _ Pa calls from somewhere behind him, voice more amused than anything.

_ Aw, give him a break,  _ he hears Uncle Tommy tell him.  _ It’s his first time with the big boys. _

First of many, Will thinks, and there’s a thrill in his veins.)

“I was so at home,” he says. “The way the boat pitched and rolled… there was no shore for miles. We kept passing this one buoy that had a bell on it. That sound could put me to sleep. It was so… peaceful.” He pauses. “I was in love with the ocean.”

Will lets out a long breath; he’s not used to so many words at once. He doesn’t realize how much he’s been talking until quiet envelops them again, and it’s just the stars and the closeness and the warm night all around them. He feels Derek’s thumb rub at his knuckle where they’re still clasping hands below.

When Derek finally speaks again, it’s two words, in a gentle voice close to his ear.

“What changed?”

( _ Mrs. Poindexter?  _ say the two men in uniform at the door, and Will puts a hand on Ma’s back, like rooting himself to her might prevent the oncoming collapse as the world caves in on the two of them. The strangled cry she lets out will never leave his ears.

_ He went down with the ship _ , the men explain, in the parlor on the couch, after Will has invited them in.  _ He was buried at sea. _

Ma holds the folded flag they’ve given her in her lap. Will’s arm is around her, and he hopes to God she can’t feel how much he’s shaking. She’s crying herself as is.

_ The commandant extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss. _

The cemetery is gray and the ground is near frozen. Father Peter reads from a book. Will wears black and holds Ma’s hand, staring at a grave he knows his father’s body will never really lie under.

_ Into your hands, Father of mercies, we commend our brother William, in the sure and certain hope that, together with all who have died in Christ, he will rise with him on the last day. _

_ Coming out on the boat again this summer, Junior?  _ It’s Christmas, two months since Pa died. Uncle Tommy asks this with a gentle smile, making small talk in the living room while they wait for dinner to be served. He has Pa’s ginger hair and light eyes and, worst of all, his smile. Everything about him reminds Will of the man he’s named for, the man he’ll never see again, the man the ocean took from him.

Will shakes his head and looks at the ground.  _ No, thank you. _ )

Now, Will closes his eyes, shuts out the memories and the stars. He feels Derek’s body so close, his hand clasped around his, and exhales.

“My pa,” he says finally, “he died at sea.”

He hears Derek inhale, like he’s taken him by surprise, and his response comes much more quickly than the slow conversation has trended. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s— no.” Will pauses. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

“But I am,” Derek replies. “It’s… you lost someone. It hurts. I didn’t mean to open it up again.”

“Talking about it isn’t reopening anything,” he says. “It happened. It’s part of my past.”

“But re-living bad memories…” Derek says. “That isn’t always fun. It’s hardly ever fun, actually. So I’m sorry if I—”

“Derek.” Will squeezes his hand, hard, and this quiets him. “I promise. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Derek breathes, and then he shifts a little, turning his head to face him. “Okay.”

Derek drapes his free arm across his chest, and Will points his eyes upward. Many years ago, Uncle Tommy told him once, sailors didn’t have maps or compasses or radio. To navigate, they relied on the stars.

Will wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“Will, baby,” comes the sweet voice beside him, and he steadies himself, feels the warm flutter he still always does whenever Derek calls him that. He turns his face a little to eye Derek, who is resting his cheek on his shoulder, curls flopped over his forehead,  _ beautiful _ — even in the low light. “Can I say something?”

Will nods.

“Thank you for sharing that with me.”

Now Will may be blushing again, but for more embarrassed than flattered reasons. “What?”

“Thank you,” Derek repeats, a world of sincerity in his voice. “I know that probably wasn’t easy. I’m grateful you shared that with me.”

“But all I did was tell you what happened,” Will replies, squinting at him. “I don’t— understand.”

Derek pulls him to him— gently, but with purpose; he tugs him onto his side by his shirt. Will rolls to face him, and Derek’s hand finds rest on his waist. “I just like learning things about you,” he says. “About your past. Your life before me. I’m grateful when you share it with me, even when it’s hard.”

“I like learning about you too,” Will blurts, and then Derek presses a kiss to his mouth that stops his painful awkwardness in its tracks. Derek’s lips are soft and welcome, and he squeezes his eyes shut to kiss him back, once, twice, three times and then some. It clouds the painful memories, fills the gaps with something like healing.

It’s tender. It’s quiet. It’s warm.

Will could stay here all night. There’s nothing like this. Nothing like him.

When they come up for air, Will lets a question fall from his lips automatically, brushing against his lover’s mouth for fear of pulling too far away. “Would you like to stay over tonight?”

The night is dark, but Derek’s smile is brilliant. “Uh,  _ yeah. _ I’d love that.”

“Okay.” Will pauses. He maybe smiles back. “Me, too.”

Then he melts back in to kiss him, and the rest of the world fades away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and, as always, feel free to shout at me in the comments! I love and appreciate every single one of you.


	27. johnson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do apologize, my friends, because we're at a slightly narratively awkward part of the story. There are some big plot points coming up, but in order to write such a long fic, there have to be chapters that are slightly less eventful than others. Thank you for bearing with me!!  
> Anyway, with this in mind, I could think of no better time for a visit from our favorite metaphysical goalie. :D

_ July 14th, 1961 _

_ Day 98 In Good Haven _

Derek has been waiting for this day.

Well. Half waiting for it. Also sort of dreading it. He dons his overalls in the morning with a weird, preoccupied anticipation on his mind. They’re stained all over, and he feels a little badly because Will lent them to him and they’re still technically not his own. He totally wrecked them— from the peach of the kitchen, to the blue of the sitting-room, to the pale yellow he’s spent the past two weeks perfecting on the exterior. He kind of likes it, though. It’s like they became his smock. He’s a walking piece of art.

But today… today is going to be interesting. Because he walks down the stairs to breakfast with the knowledge that once he touches up the trim outside today, he is fresh out of work on this place. He’s spent the past month and a half flipping it, making it like new. Once he’s done with this, he’s  _ done _ .

And he’s… out of work again? Exhausted his stay? He’s really trying not to think too hard about it.

“Good morning, Derek.” Eric passes him a muffin in the kitchen. It has streusel on the top, and it’s blueberry. And still warm. “How did you sleep?”

“I slept alright.” It’s delicious. Derek is pretty sure he and Betsy are in an abusive marriage where he works her until she wants to give out on him. Will has been over two separate times in the past month alone to take a look.

“I, uh…” Derek adds, not entirely sure how to phrase this. Eric is rearranging the spices in his cabinet, but a glance thrown over his shoulder and a nod let Derek know he’s listening. “I think I’m gonna, like, finish today? I’m just touching up the trim. And once it’s done— that’s, like. That’s all.”

Eric smiles warmly. “That’s great news!”

“Well,” Derek mumbles, “yeah, uh— yeah, I guess it is.”

“You’ve been a real help, honey,” Eric adds, shaking a little container of nutmeg like he’s trying to see how much of it is left. “I can’t thank you enough. The place is like new.”

He needs to find another job. Or, like.  _ Something _ . “I’m really glad I could help.”

He… didn’t think this far ahead.

Two hours later, when he’s perched up on a ladder milking the very last piece of white trim outside his own bedroom window, he knows he’s exhausted his case. He’s been working at this for weeks on end— he has reached the end of the project.

But, he tells himself, at least it’s done! At least it’s done, and it looks good, and he’s done something to help somebody. He wonders if the act of him painting this inn would have some kind of ripple effect, and change something about the future. He hopes he hasn’t destroyed society like in  _ A Sound of Thunder _ . That would be, like, a major bummer.

Whatever, he resolves, as he climbs down his ladder, baking in the hot sun. He’ll take himself out for lunch at the diner to celebrate this occasion, and he’ll say hi to Will. He’s not sure if they’ll be able to see each other tonight, but whenever he gets him in private next, he can talk to him about the job situation.

Or something. He doesn’t know. He’s trying to take this whole thing one small non-anxious step at a time. And at least Will knows, now, that the anxiety is a thing that exists.

He puts the overalls in the wash, changes into a clean set of clothes, and walks downtown. It’s nice out, and he could use the physical activity anyway. He’s slowly getting used to not having a car. This makes him sort of regret all the times back home when he’d bitch about how much he hated driving. Like, yeah, New York public transport is a lot  _ easier  _ when you’re trying to get around the city, but in a town like this, a car is sort of a necessity. Unless you want to become extremely well-acquainted with roadway walking routes. Which Derek is, now.

He prefers his ginger chauffeur and his big red truck, but unfortunately said chauffeur also has a job and responsibilities.

So: he walks. He makes it downtown in about fifteen minutes, and the sun is shining bright in a clear sky. He’s pretty sure he’s going to get a great tan.

Annie’s is busy, but no busier than it usually is. Will’s truck is parked out back, so, like, score. He’s figured out the smoothest way to make an occasional visit and see him at work without being weird about it. He has this undercover gay thing down to a science.

Or at least he really hopes he does.

There’s a guy smoking out towards the back of the building, near where the employees park. He gives Derek a wave as he passes, and Derek nods to him in return. He doesn’t recognize the guy, but then again, there’s a baseball cap on his head that casts a shadow over his face, so he’s even really sure what he looks like from this angle.

He’s heading for the front door when the guy speaks. “Afternoon, Nursey.”

_ Uh.  _ Derek stops in his tracks and glances over at him. His face is still shadowed, like some kind of government agent. “Uh… ‘sup.”

“It’s okay, bro,” the guy adds. There are a few feet between them; he’s leaning against the side of the building. “I’m not a ghost.”

Is Derek maybe hallucinating, or did he just get called Nursey? “Do I, uh…” He pauses. “Do I know you?”

The guy shrugs. “In some stories, you do.” He puffs on his cigarette like this isn’t the weirdest possible response, then adds, “I tend to fly under the radar.”

“Uh… chill.”

The faceless guy seems to sense his confusion, because he takes his cigarette out for a second and says, “John Johnson.”

“ _ Ohhh _ .” Johnson, the guy who works here. This makes more sense. Derek has had yet to have an actual conversation with him, but he remembers what Eric said about him being off his rocker. “You’re the dishwasher!”

“In some cases, yes.” Johnson’s voice is a level of cool and chill that Derek aspires to.

“I’m Derek,” he adds, stepping forward a little. “Uh—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnson replies, like for some reason this is not new information. He wonders if his coworkers have told him about him. “Derek Nurse… Nursey… all the same, isn’t it?”

There he goes again with  _ Nursey _ . Derek has no idea where he heard it. He hasn’t been Nursey since Chowder’s wedding. “How do you—”

“Honestly, man?” Johnson interrupts. “Between you and me? I’m getting kind of tired of AUs.” Derek furrows his brow as Johnson digs into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He extends one to him, and it takes Derek more than a second to realize he’s offering him a smoke.

Derek tucks his hands into his pockets and shakes his head. People in this century are wild. They’re all going to die of lung cancer. “No, thanks.”

Johnson shrugs like  _ suit yourself _ , then pockets the pack again. “Like… I know the writers love them,” he says, apparently continuing his previous thought, “and I guess the readers do, too, but it creates a lot of work for me.” He tips his head to the sky, but his face is still sort of shadowed. “Sometimes,” he says, a little wistfully, “I just miss good old Samwell.”

“ _ Yooo _ , you went to Samwell?” And now that Derek is noticing, his cap is maroon. He can’t exactly read the top of it, but it looks a lot like an official SMH one.

“You know it, bro,” Johnson replies. Why does this guy talk more like one of his friends from home than a dishwasher from the 60s? “Greatest school in the world.”

“That’s sick,” Derek says. “I did, too.”

Johnson waves his hand a little. “Oh, I know.”

Derek squints.  _ Uh?  _ He wonders if the smoke he’s having is actually a joint.

“Anyway.” Johnson pauses. “I hear you’re having car troubles.”

“Oh… ch’yeah, for a little bit now. My car crapped out on me.” He glances over his shoulder in the direction he came from Eric’s. “It’s a mega bummer.”

“All part of the narrative structure, my friend,” Johnson muses.

“Of life?”

“Sure.”

He remembers Eric telling him Johnson sometimes says stuff like this, but to hear it coming from the actual person standing in front of him is… quite an experience. He wonders if Johnson is just fucking with everybody. “Do you, uh… know someone who can fix my car?”

“Oh, no,” Johnson replies or maybe laughs. “In this century? You’re fresh out of luck with that thing.” He pauses, and Derek is so delayed in his processing of all this weird shit that what he said doesn’t register right away. “But I  _ am _ a bus driver, in my spare moments. I could get you back to New York, when the time is right—”

_ Wait.  _ “Hold up.” He needs to rewind. “Hold on. Stop.” He didn’t hear him right, did he? “What did you just say?”

“I said I’m a bus driver, and—”

Derek shakes his head. “No, no, no.” He’s not going to flip. “Before that.”

Johnson’s voice reveals only indifference. “I said you’re fresh out of luck.”

“Before  _ that _ .”

“ _ Ohhh _ .” Johnson’s body language relaxes a little. Derek wishes he could get a clear look at his face. “In this century?”

Okay. Yeah. Derek is officially freaked the fuck out.

Did Will tell the rest of the staff about him? He knows that Kent knows, but he thought that was the only other person Will had told. Maybe  _ Kent _ told. But he  _ trusts _ Kent, and Will does too, and why would Kent betray that trust when he had no reason to?—

“Oh,  _ relax _ , Marty McFly,” Johnson adds, and Derek is officially hallucinating this entire conversation, because that movie isn’t supposed to come out for another twenty years.

He barely has the voice to ask, “How do you know that?”

Johnson puffs on his cigarette, and, in the most unbothered voice of all time, says, “There are certain things I just know.”

Derek feels rigid, tense, and vaguely nauseous. “Are you threatening me?”

“ _ Pff _ — what?” Johnson laughs a little. “Threatening you? Jeez, Nursey,  _ no _ . There are no villains in this story. You’re even more paranoid here than you are in the canon universe.” He pauses. “Heed your own advice and chill.”

Derek is so, so lost. “What do you want with me?”

“Dude,  _ nothing _ ,” Johnson replies. “Just to wish you luck.”

“Luck?” Derek asks, like everything about this conversation so far hasn’t been absolutely unsettling and possibly sketchy. “With what?”

“Well, we’re about at the halfway point.” Johnson looks at his wrist like it’s a watch, but it’s bare. “And if you’ve been paying attention, you’d notice that the author has added the ‘Eventual Happy Ending’ tag to the description, which means it’s possible shit could be getting real in your near future.”

Either he’s officially lost it or Johnson has. He has no idea which. “Uhh.”

“Look, don’t worry,” Johnson adds. “You’ve got a handful of chapters left before the third act begins. And I know on good authority that everything turns out very well for you in the end.”

“Uh…” The way he says this is oddly comforting, like there isn’t a shred of doubt in his mind that everything is going to be okay. It’s like he cares, for some reason, about Derek’s life, despite having just met him. “Okay.”

“And for Will,” Johnson adds.

Derek freezes solid.

“Oh,  _ chillax _ , bro,” he says. “I know everything about everyone in this town. None of it is endangering to you, promise. Like, for example? Bitty’s real adventure in this AU won’t start until the new hockey coach comes to town. Of course, it’ll create a little animosity between him and his cousin, but when are those two not going at it anyway—”

Derek blinks. “Bitty?” he repeats.

Johnson’s face is shadowed, but somehow Derek  _ knows _ he rolls his eyes at this. “You know,” he says, exasperatedly. “Eric? Bittle? I’ll have you know, he’s normally the main character.” He puffs on the cigarette again. “It’s nice, shaking things up, but then again, you can kind of be a disaster.”

Derek’s best, published-author, English PhD student response to that is, “Uh.”

“Anyway.” Johnson sighs. “Try not to worry, because things will be okay.”

“Do you…” Derek starts, though he feels a little uneasy asking. “... know how I’m supposed to get home?”

“Not right now.”

“Uh?” His voice goes up a little on the noise.

“Look, it’ll all make sense in due time,” Johnson assures him. “Plus, you have plot points to get to.” He jabs his thumb in the direction of the front door of the diner. “When you walk in there, Kent’s gonna ask if you want a new painting job. You should take it.”

Derek looks to the door. “Okay?”

“I know Bittle’s is done,” Johnson adds. “That’s why I say so.”

“Uh.” He’s past the point of wondering how Johnson knows this. “Right.”

“Just paint,” he says. “You’ll need the money.”

“For what?”

“Uh, basic needs?” Johnson puffs on the cigarette again. “Look, I’ve got your best interests in mind, buddy. But what do I know? I’m just a plot device.”

And somehow, impossibly, Derek  _ believes _ him— not that he’s a plot device or whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but that he has his best interests in mind. He’s pretty sure his normal self would be losing his shit at the prospect that some random employee at Annie’s a.) knows he’s from the future, amd b.) knows he and Will are involved, but Johnson seems genuinely benevolent, if a little frustrated with Derek’s confusion. There’s nothing threatening about him. “And besides,” he adds, “my break is over.”

“Uh… okay.” Derek pauses. “Chill.”

“I’ll see you later, Nursey. Derek.” Johnson drops his cigarette and stomps it out with his heel. “Whatever the author is calling you right now.”

“Uh.”

“Oh, and by the way?” Johnson turns to go. “Hold tight to Dex,” he says. “You’re gonna need each other.”

“Dex—” Derek pauses. “Will?”

“Yeah.” Johnson takes a second, adjusts his hat. It  _ is _ a Samwell hat, crossed hockey sticks on its front and all. “Enemies to friends to lovers,” he remarks. “Y’know, I never thought I’d say this? But you two are easier to deal with in canon.”

Derek wonders, distantly, if he’s supposed to understand what the fuck is going on.

“You always seem to find each other, though,” Johnson adds, with a shrug. “Alright, well. Catch you later.”

Without another word, like some kind of ominous but well-meaning Good Haven cryptid, he disappears through the side entrance for the employees. The door swings behind him.

Derek waits there for a second, like he’s about to be taken up into the afterlife for having the conversation he just had, or maybe the fabric of spacetime is going to rip apart right before his eyes. None of that happens. A shiny blue Mustang drives by on the street, and there’s a bird call from the nearby trees, and a party of three exits through the front door, having a loud and spirited argument about politics, or at least it must be that, because he hears  _ President Kennedy _ and  _ Congress _ .

Maybe he really did hallucinate Johnson. The paint fumes from Eric’s are finally getting to him.

He doesn’t know. Whatever. It’s chill. He walks to the front door and pulls it open.

He’s, like,  _ extremely _ hungry.

“Well, if it isn’t Curly himself,” Kent says, at the host stand. He’s in his pink bowling shirt today, and looks in good spirits. “Say, do you have a minute?”

Derek saunters to the stand and replies, “Is this gonna be about painting?”

Kent raises his eyebrows, smiling faintly. “How did you know?”

He shrugs. “Had a feeling.”

“Well, my cousin’s place looks great,” Kent says. “I was thinking, if you wanted more work—”

“Yes,” he says, before Kent can finish. He figures he should probably trust Johnson’s advice, crazy as it is, if he was right about this.

“Oh?” Kent replies.

“Yeah, I’ll do it.” More work is more work. Derek is ready to roll with it. Also, Will works here. Which is a bonus. He can see him behind the bar, and catches his eye across the dining room with a little smile. Will, handsome as ever in his work uniform, down to the funny hat his ears protrude from, flashes just the  _ tiniest _ grin back at him. Derek gets butterflies like he’s in middle school.

He looks back to Kent, who  _ definitely _ was watching that, and Derek does not care one single bit. “When can I start?” he adds.

Kent laughs and shakes his hand. “Now we’re talking.”


	28. stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some NSFW content in this chapter, my friends. There's no explicit sex, but it gets suggestive. I told you it'd start getting spicy!

_ July 15th, 1961 _

_ Day 99 In Good Haven _

Will’s mind has been wandering.

It’s been going to places he knows it probably shouldn’t be going. Or at least it isn’t considered acceptable for someone’s mind to go. Being with Derek has opened so many doors he was convinced would stay firmly shut for all his life, and as a result, he finds himself thinking so much, more than he ever has, of things that shouldn’t be thought of.

It happens mostly during idle time. In the barn or the yard during his chores, or in the shower early in the morning. In bed, late at night, all by himself thinking of the way it feels to wake up next to Derek here. Even worse— or better?— is when he  _ does _ wake up with Derek in his bed, which has happened a few times, but never after anything more than kissing, never with the connotations that waking up in bed has together for married couples or others who stray into actions considered impure.

He intends to hide it, at first. There’s nothing he can do about it, or nothing he should, at least. Even though he and Derek have been growing closer and closer, and he feels that their relationship is getting more and more serious— he shouldn’t cross that line. It wouldn’t be responsible, not to mention he’s never done anything like the things he’s thought of before.

But he’s so, so curious. And every day, he  _ wants _ him more.

So when it starts to happen, it goes like this:

It’s a rainy night— stormy, in fact— and they’re sitting inside at Will’s. Thunder rolls off the roof and mixes with the sound of rain. Will has something spinning on the record player, an old jazz record for Derek, who he’s noticed has seemed to be a fan of those. It wasn’t raining earlier today— they had a nice day spent outside, with Will working in the yard and Derek writing to no end in his latest notebook, but that was all before the storms rolled in.

_ C’mon, babe _ , Derek had said to him, under the awning on the porch, safe and sheltered from the rain and the darkening sky.  _ Let’s go inside and make a blanket fort. _

Will had laced Derek’s fingers in his hands, stepping close to him.  _ What’s a blanket fort? _

_ A fort made of blankets _ , Derek had replied, as there was a rumble of thunder. He caught him in a kiss, smoothing Will’s hair where it had gotten damp from the starting downpour on his walk to the porch.  _ It’ll be fun. _

Thirty minutes or so later, here they are. The ‘blanket fort’ that Derek envisioned might not be exactly right, but it’s something. They’ve pushed the coffee table out a bit from in front of the couch, draping a quilt that usually sits in the basket next to the couch over the top to shelter them in. There are couch pillows all over the rug on the floor, and the only source of light is a lantern Will brought in from inside. They sit across from each other, legs stretched out to tangle.

“Are you cold?” Will asks, as a rumble of thunder sounds in the far-off distance. “Maybe I oughta light a fire in the hearth.”

Derek takes a moment, rubbing Will’s knee, before responding. “I’m not that cold.” 

The quilt tents over the top of Derek’s head, and the soft light frames him gently. Neither of them has any business in this ‘blanket fort’, because it’s structured like it’s for children, and they are  _ much _ too tall.

That’s the thing with Derek. Time spent with him sometimes feels as carefree as childhood.

“Are you?” he asks, sliding his hand up his leg a little.

This causes Will to tense, but not in a bad way. He’s just so hyper-aware of every place Derek is touching him; he has been from the start. Derek’s intention seems to be growing more and more intimate. “I’m not,” Will manages to get out, mostly coherent, “but I could be warmer.”

Derek grins like he’s been wanting this answer. He leans forward a little, closing some of the distance between them. “Could you use some help with that?”

Will tips his head to the side, stays quiet for a moment, and then remarks, “You aren’t subtle.”

Derek winks. “That was never my goal.”

Will rolls his eyes and mumbles something-or-other under his breath about the fact that he can be insufferable, but even he doesn’t really know what he’s trying to say. He slides forward into his arms, and Derek gives him a gentle kiss, then wraps his free arm around him and tugs him into his embrace.

It’s just kissing. Or at least it starts as just kissing. Will is steadily aware of Derek’s hand, which is still resting on his thigh, warm where it presses down. And he tries so hard not to think too much about that hand, but it gets harder, as Derek holds him so close to him and kisses him slowly. His thumb moves back and forth across the seam in Will’s jeans, and Will isn’t sure he knows how to breathe anymore.

“Hey,” Derek whispers, suddenly, taking a pause in the kissing. “Is this okay?”

Will swallows, but his throat is dry. “Yes,” he replies, and nods a little to drive the point home. “I— it’s okay.”

“You sure?” Derek’s fingers grace under the hem of his shirt, and Will’s breath catches. “You seem… nervous.”

“I’m not,” Will says. “I’m alright. I’m just—”

But he can’t find the words. Derek’s hand stays on his leg, and he cups his other hand around Will’s hip where he’s eased it to bare skin. His eyes are searching in the light of the lantern, and he pauses a few inches from his lips.

“Would you—” Will’s brain is a jumble, but he doesn’t want this to stop. “Keep touching me?”

Derek nods. “Of course, babe,” he whispers, and then finds him for another slow kiss. His hand lingers on Will’s thigh, and when Will feels the tug of his hands pulling him closer, he lets himself be taken there.

And he’s— oh. He’s suddenly aware of a small situation, as his heart pounds in his ears between kisses. Lost in the feeling of this touch, he hasn’t noticed a now very obvious problem. He’s trying to figure out how to hide it from Derek when Derek’s leg rubs right up against it, and a shiver courses through Will at the friction.

He wonders if Derek is going to say anything, but all Derek does is smile just a little and keep kissing him. Will is— well, he’s embarrassed. He knows his face is heating up, and the problem hasn’t resolved itself. In fact, it gets more urgent every time Derek kisses him.

He has to stop. Or at least he has to pause. He pulls back and rests a hand on Derek’s chest, to keep a few inches between them.

“Baby.” Derek squeezes at his hip. “Are you sure you’re—”

But Will can’t take this anymore without saying something. He really can’t. “Derek?” When this causes Derek to halt midsentence, Will lifts his eyes to his and prays that he doesn’t sound stupid. “Can I ask you something?”

Derek shifts a little, and nods. His expression stays neutral. Will doesn’t want to make him anxious, but he just. He wants to  _ know _ . He takes a long breath before he speaks again, then tightens his hand where it’s holding onto Derek’s waist.

“Have you ever made love?”

Will isn’t quite sure exactly what goes on in Derek’s eyes when he asks this question. They seem to light up, but Derek doesn’t smile. Will thinks he’s caught him by surprise, but it’s been so long since he  _ started _ having these thoughts that he’s been keeping the question at bay for weeks.

_ Please _ , he thinks, to no one in particular,  _ please don’t let this ruin anything. _

“Well,” Derek says, after a brief pause. “I… I’ve had sex, but I don’t know if I’d necessarily say I’ve ‘made love’.”

It’s an honest answer, but Will knits his brows. “What’s the difference?”

Derek chuckles a little. “Sometimes I forget you were born in 1935.”

“ _ Derek _ .” He’s too on-edge— and attracted to him— to be made fun of right now. “You know I don’t know what that means.”

“I know, babe.” Derek kisses him so much more lightly than Will wants him to, then moves his hand that’s on his hip to his face, to trace along his jawline. “The thing is, like… sex? Where I come from? Is so much more of a casual thing in society than it is right now for you.”

It creates a visual Will isn’t sure he loves, the thought of Derek sleeping around. Casually. More like Kenny. “Do you do it often?” Will backtracks as he realizes that, at least right now, of course he doesn’t— he’s with him. “I mean. Did you? At home?”

Derek contemplates for a moment, then inhales a little and shrugs. “When I came here, I wasn’t being very… active. I hadn’t for a long time, actually. I wasn’t doing much dating back at home.” He pauses. “But to answer your question, I used to hook up in college.” His lip twitches a little, and he asks, “Is this conversation making you uncomfortable?”

“No.” Will shakes his head, and means it. He likes this better than beating around the bush, the way they’ve been doing when anything gets intimate for weeks now. “I started it.”

“Well, that’s true,” he replies, “but.”

“But I still don’t understand,” Will says. “What the difference is.”

“Oh.” Derek pauses, gently, and then smiles a little. It’s more of a smirk, as it gets wider, and he looks into Will’s eyes for a few seconds that feel more tense— in the intimate sense— than anything has ever been between them.

Then Derek asks, cool as can be, “Do you want me to show you?”

Will can  _ feel _ himself blushing. This response is more forward than he expected, and the thoughts it induces— Will isn’t sure he can handle them all at once. “I,” he says, and that’s all he can get out.

“I don’t have to,” Derek amends, in something of a hurry. He takes his hand off of Will’s thigh, and Will immediately feels cold and lacking from where it’s gone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so forward—”

“No— no.” Will will  _ not _ let himself mess this up. He leans forward to kiss him, and it’s a long, tender thing. He holds Derek’s head in one hand and takes a handful of his curls. When they pull apart, he says, in a breathy voice that sounds more fragile than he wants it to, “I do.” He pauses. “But not all at once.”

“ _ Oh _ .” Realization dawns in Derek’s eyes, and he nods. “Yeah. Of course. Yes. No rushing.”

“But.” Will inhales, and it gets a little shaky in his chest. His problem, below his waist, is persistent, and he’s not sure how much of it he can take. When this happens and he’s alone, he’s usually able to do something about it.

But tonight, he—

Well, he wants Derek to do something about it.

He just has to figure out how to ask. “Can we—” Will pauses, licking his lips, and starts over. “I want—” He looks down into his own lap, then nods to his thigh. “Your hand. Was there?”

Derek slides his hand up his knee, something like eager. “Do you want it back?”

“Yes,” Will breathes, and that’s all it takes. He rests it there when he kisses him again, and it’s so simple and small, but the desire racks through Will like nothing he’s ever felt, and he can’t control the jump of his hips when Derek squeezes at his thigh.

“I don’t,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to his. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“You don’t have to know,” Derek replies. “I can show you.” He moves a little, then thumbs at the hem of Will’s shirt. “Can I?”

Will nods, and he slides it off. “And yours?” he asks, once Derek has cast it aside.

Derek grins. “Of course,” he replies, and Will pauses to admire him as he slides his shirt up over his chest. By lamplight, he’s angelic— muscle and clear, warm skin, a body that seems cut from stone. Will runs his hand along the cursive script of the tattoo at the top of his ribcage.

There’s more eagerness in Derek’s eyes now. He leans down until they’re skin-to-skin, slipping his hand very deliberately down to cup the inside of Will’s upper thigh. His jeans feel much tighter, all of a sudden. “Is that good?” Derek asks.

“Mmf.” His breath comes out stilted. “Yes.”

“Chill.”

He can’t believe Derek just said  _ chill _ about something like this, but at the very same time, he  _ can _ believe it. They kiss a few more times, with mouths that want to wander.

“Derek,” Will whispers, taking a pause to breathe, as Derek’s lips find their way down to the base of his neck. “I don’t think I can, um.” Derek looks up, his stubbly cheek against Will’s collarbone, while he waits for him to finish. “ _ Go all the way _ , tonight.”

“Oh, babe, no,” Derek replies. “We should work our way up.”

“Okay.” Will has no idea what this means, but he’s willing to learn. “And you— can tell me what that means?”

“Well, I could tell you,” Derek says. “If you want. I can explain.” He pauses, smirking a little, and then adds, “But I know you’re a more hands-on kind of guy.”

Will’s ears are throbbing. “ _ Oh _ .”

“Only—  _ only _ if you want to, Will.” Derek’s gaze is sincere, and for a moment, the smugness takes a backseat. “I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” He thinks he’d be more uncomfortable  _ not _ trying something, given the way this conversation is going. He’s never— nothing even close, but  _ God _ , does he want him. In any way he can have him, he wants him. “I want you to show me.”

Derek nods. “Okay.” His hands dance around Will’s belt, and there’s a beat before he says, “I’ll go slow. And I’ll check in with you.”

“Yes.” Will can’t breathe properly right now. Derek’s skin is everywhere, still pressed to his. “Okay.”

He kisses at his collarbone, then trails kisses up his neck; Will shudders and waits for the return to his lips. When it comes, Will kisses him back so eagerly that he accidentally bites at Derek’s bottom lip. He thinks, for a moment, that this might hurt him, but all Derek does is groan.

“Do that again,” Derek mumbles, so he does. When Derek pulls off of him, his lower lip is a little swollen. His curls are getting ruffled, and there’s something in his eyes Will has never seen before.

It looks like…  _ want _ , the physical kind. But this time, there’s intention to act on it.

“I should share something with you,” Derek tells him, his hand dancing now over the spot between Will’s legs.

“Okay.”

Will nearly shivers as he brings his hand down on his jeans. Derek leans into his ear, stubble scratching against his cheek, and says, in a low voice, “I don’t have any gag reflex.”

Will’s breath catches in his throat.

He wants this  _ so _ badly.

“Are you sure?” he asks, like he has any hold whatsoever on his general composure. “I mean. Do you want to test it out?”

“Oh, babe,” Derek says, with a mighty grin as he meets his eyes again. He reaches for Will’s belt buckle. “I would  _ love _ to.”

*

In the end, it’s like nothing Will has ever felt. Derek takes him to a place he’s never known, and the high is hard to come down from. He fumbles his way through a return of the gesture— not what Derek did to him, but something else, to satisfy him— and when they finish, they lay there, wrapped in each other, in the fort made of a quilt and blankets.

Will’s body feels heavy, as Derek holds his head against his chest. He shudders with the aftershocks of what’s transpired, runs his thumb up and down over one of Derek’s ribs. Derek’s hand is making gentle circles on his lower back; they’re both half-clothed.

It’s quiet, for awhile, after they settle into that resting position, and Will feels so lethargic he’s not sure if he can move, much less make dinner or think about winding down for the evening. The thunder rumbles outside, but it’s growing more and more distant.

“Derek,” Will whispers. He tips his head to look up at him. His hair is mussed up from where Will was pulling it as he settled his head between his legs.

Will will  _ never _ get that image out of his brain.

Now, Derek kisses his forehead, feather-soft, the opposite mood from what’s just transpired. “What’s up, babe?”

Will tightens his grip on his ribcage, and lets out a long breath. “Stay here tonight.”

Derek nods like he doesn’t even have to think about it. “I’d love to,” he whispers, and Will wants him nowhere else.

*

_ July 16th, 1961 _

_ Day 100 In Good Haven _

Derek wakes in an empty bed, but it’s not his yellow bed.

He knows Will’s bed, by now. He’s slept in it a handful of times, although never quite like the way he did last night. What happened between them in the blanket fort was an isolated incident, not to be repeated before bedtime, but something tells him that it won’t be the last time they cross that line.

And  _ fuck _ — it was so good; this is Derek’s first thought when he wakes up the next morning. It was so, so good, some of the best he’s ever had, actually, and to think they barely even scratched the  _ surface _ of what they can do together. Will’s flushed torso, the way his voice sounded so strained, the feeling of  _ him _ right where Derek wanted him. It was…  _ so much _ . And Derek wants more.

But he still has no idea, waking up in his bed this morning, where Will is. He rolls over and sits up; he fell asleep in his boxers and nothing else, pressed into Will’s skin peppering sleepy kisses to the freckles on his lover’s back. This morning, Will is nowhere in sight.

He could be out in the barn, Derek realizes, because there’s morning light streaming warm through the window, and Will has chores to do at some point no matter the day of the week. But when he sits up in bed and looks around, Will’s work clothes, set out for the day, are still on the dresser. Which means either he changed his mind about today’s outfit, or he hasn’t gotten dressed yet.

Derek swings his legs off the bed, smooths out the curls at his forehead, and stands up.

He’s going to investigate.

It doesn’t take much. When he leaves the bedroom, floorboards creaking under his feet, it only takes him a few steps into the hallway to smell whatever is cooking downstairs. Scrambled eggs, maybe, but he can’t be sure. Whatever it is, it makes his stomach rumble. He and Will were so immersed in the post-coital glow that they full-on skipped dinner last night.

He looks down at himself. Maybe he should put some pants on. No shirt, he decides. But pants would be the move.

There’s a part of a drawer in Will’s dresser that has started to become his space for random articles of clothing. It holds two Samwell t-shirts, a pair of socks, and his favorite joggers. He pulls on the sweatpants, swings by the bathroom to check himself in the mirror, and deems it acceptable. He looks like he got laid last night, but, in a way, he sort of did.

He makes his slow way down the stairs, and when he reaches the bottom, finds the source of the smell— Will is cooking, alright, and he’s a sight Derek never wants to look away from. He’s wearing a shirt, but it’s Derek’s shirt, from last night, the one he cast off before getting in bed. It hugs Will’s hips and rides up just a little at his waist; on the bottom, he’s in his pajama pants. His hair is messy, and he’s standing at the stove with his back to Derek.

He could look at this all day.

But instead, he goes to him. He wraps his arms around him from behind as a greeting, and Will jumps a little, then settles when he looks back and sees him. Derek laughs. “What,” he asks, “did you think there was a ghost hugging you?”

“I can never be sure,” Will replies, then smiles so softly that Derek might melt. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he replies, squeezing him tight at the waist and going in for a kiss. It’s quick and sweet. “How’d you sleep, sexy?”

Will chuckles, his face flushing all shades of freckly red, and looks down into the frying pan he’s supervising. They  _ are _ scrambled eggs, and there’s bread off to the side stacked on a plate next to the toaster, like he has plans for it. An open jar of strawberry jam sits nearby, and a stick of margarine. “I slept well,” Will says, stirring his eggs. They’re starting to solidify from liquid. “And you?”

“I slept  _ great _ .” He kisses his neck, then his cheek. Will chuckles, tipping his head against his, and they share a collective exhale.

“Last night,” Derek whispers, after a moment. He looks up at him again. “Was it okay?”

Will brings one hand up to cup around his, where he’s holding onto his chest, and rubs at his knuckles for a moment. “It was great,” he replies, and he sounds so content. “If it was for you.”

“It was.” Like nothing else.

Will stirs again for a second, then takes a sharp breath and starts, “I’d never—”

“I know.” Derek knows what he means, without needing that sentence finished. He gives him a smile, and Will returns it with a nod that gets more confident after a second. “I like it,” Derek adds. “That I got to be the one.”

Will blushes furiously. “Me, too,” he replies. “And, um. It’s like you said.”

Derek rubs his stomach. “Hm?”

Will returns to the eggs, letting out a breath, and still smiling. “We can work our way up.”

Oh, Derek doesn’t stand a fucking  _ chance _ to that smile.

He hugs him tight, still pressed against him from behind, and buries his face in his neck. “That we can, baby,” he hums. “That we can.”

Will chuckles, and Derek realizes, all at once, that he is falling hard and fast, and God, there is absolutely nothing he can do to stop it.

“Now,” Will says, waving his wooden spoon a little. “Make yourself useful and help out with breakfast.”

Derek feigns a gasp. “Make myself  _ useful _ ?” he asks. “You mean my presence alone isn’t useful enough for you?”

“Well,” he says, staring at his eggs but grinning ear to giant ear, “if you’re going to start staying with me, I have to put you to work around the house.”

Derek halts. He squints at him, like maybe he didn’t hear him right, and Will seems, too, to realize what he said, as he bites his lip and blinks at his eggs. He stops stirring.

Derek snakes his arms all the way around his waist again. “Staying with you?” he asks, speaking slower now. “What do you mean?”

Will takes a long breath, in and out, with his eyes closed. When he opens them again, he turns to look right at him, putting his wooden spoon down in the pan and leaving it be for a moment.

“You don’t have to say yes,” he says. “But how would you like to stay here with me instead of at the inn?”

Derek’s stomach flutters. He knows he’s beaming before the words even come out of his mouth. “Wait. Babe. Yes. Of course. Are you serious?”

Will’s smile is gentle and lopsided. He is the most handsome thing anywhere. “Of course I’m serious.”

“ _ Will _ .” Derek kisses him so abruptly he almost knocks the pan over.

“Ah!” Will steadies the eggs, laughing, and says, “Be careful.”

“I’m sorry,” he replies, and he cannot stop smiling. “I just. I’d love that.”

This house, with Will, is  _ quite _ the upgrade from sleeping alone at Eric’s. He’s going to combust. He beams at him while Will frets over his eggs.

“Good,” Will says finally, lifting his hand and extending his pinky.

Derek links his in it, pressing his forehead to his, and nods. He knows what this means. “You and me.”

“You and me,” Will echoes, and it is blissfully soft. Until he adds, all business, “Now, I’m serious. Help me with breakfast. Aren’t you hungry?”

“ _ Starving _ ,” Derek replies, and they finish making it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! I'm writing very far ahead in this story right now, and I can't wait to share the rest of it with you. Bear with me— I know there are a lot of chapters! I love you all; thank you for reading. <3


	29. paint the town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, what's this? A chapter on a Sunday? I told you guys updates would be coming quicker soon, so here we are. This one is kind of a quickie, whereas chapter 30 is pretty long. So have this for now, and then I'll see you with ch. 30 on Wednesday!!

_ July 17th, 1961 _

_ Day 101 in Good Haven _

Derek packs most of his stuff up in the yellow room before he even thinks about telling Eric.

Yesterday, he and Will went over a few things he could say to Eric, in explanation for leaving the inn.  _ I don’t think Eric is untrustworthy _ , Will had said to him, over breakfast,  _ especially after knowing what Kenny told me about him, but… it still makes me wary to think about him knowing the truth. _

So Derek treads carefully. When he’s ready, he finds Eric in the kitchen; he’s making an aggressive amount of blueberry jam.

“Uh.” Derek leans against the doorframe. “Special occasion?”

Eric shakes his head, casting a wistful gaze toward his empty jars. “Annie does a big order for the diner during berry season each year,” he explains. “Well— Kent put it in this time around, actually. Which explains the demand for blueberry. I did a batch of raspberry yesterday.”

Diner jam discourse is really not how he expected this conversation to begin, but then again, it’s Eric, so he shouldn’t be surprised. “Does Kent have, like, a thing for blueberry jam?”

“If by ‘a thing’ you mean he stockpiles it in his apartment and pretends like I don’t know about it, then yes.” Eric raises his eyebrows and lets out a little sigh. “My blueberry pie, too. He thinks he’s a cool cat, but I assure you, he isn’t.”

Derek snorts a little. He thinks this cousin feud will never end. Maybe, if he keeps entertaining this train of thought, it’ll soften the blow when he tells Eric what he came down here to tell him. “Is there a reason Kent pretends not to like your baking?”

“Oh, you know,” Eric replies, like Derek does, in fact, know, as he stirs his bubbling pot of blueberry stuff on Betsy’s stove. “Kent thinks he’s in competition with me.”

“Uh…” Derek says. “Baking competition?”

“Competition for a good life.” Eric pauses, then shrugs. “But that’s not important. How are you today, honey? Speaking of the diner, I heard it’s your next painting project.”

“Yeah!” Derek almost forgot about that, even though he’s already picked out the colors and made a plan. He did not think that this summer would turn him into a softcore manual laborer, but there are a  _ lot _ of things about this summer that have come out of the blue.

He  _ needs _ to get in contact with Chowder. “Yeah, I’m doing that for Kent and Annie,” he adds. “Well, I mean. They’re paying me. But it’s something to do, and that’s nice.”

“That  _ is _ nice,” Eric says, nodding at his blueberries and then smiling up at him. “I’m glad you’re finding work, honey. They’ll be lucky to have you.” He looks around his newly painted kitchen, vaguely reverent in his expression. “I mean, look what you’ve done with the place.”

Derek smiles and fixes his hair. “I’m happy to help,” he says, shifting his weight from one sneaker to the other, and then takes a long breath. He almost feels bad. Eric is so sweet. But he’s long overstayed his welcome, and there’s a ginger across town who wants to take him in. He can’t say no to  _ that _ offer. “So, I, um… I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

“Sure thing, honey.” Eric puts down his spoon for a moment, leaning against Betsy as he turns around. “Everything okay?”

“Well…” He pauses, hesitates a little. “Yeah, actually. It’s— everything’s very okay.”  _ Except, you know, I’m stuck in another century and I’m falling in love.  _ “I just… I have some news.”

“News!” Eric smiles. He’s completely unsuspecting. Derek wonders if this will hurt his feelings. “Well, out with it, then. Should we be celebrating?”

Derek chuckles. “No— not that kind of news. I…” He should not be terrified of this tiny blond baker, and yet here he is. “I’ve found someone to stay with in town.”

Eric blinks. His face goes soft. “Someone to stay with?” he asks. “You’re… checking out?”

“I’m sorry, Eric,” he says, with a little pang of guilt somewhere in his stomach. “You’ve been the best host. I just… don’t want to mooch off of you, and—”

“Oh, honey,” Eric says, “you’ve  _ never _ been mooching. I’ve been happy to have you.” He pauses, and then smiles, just a little, before adding, “I know what this is really about.”

Anxiety prickles in the back of Derek’s mind. “You, uh. You do?”

“I do.” Eric nods for a long, ambiguous moment before adding, “You’re going to stay with your girl, aren’t you?”

“Uhh.” Is it better to lie here? He thinks probably not, in this situation. If he were caught in a lie and then discovered to be staying with Will, it would look worse than if he were just upfront and chill about it. “Actually, no. I’m staying with Will. Poindexter.”

Eric arches an eyebrow, and Derek adds, “He offered me his guest room. I’m going to paint his barn. And he’ll bring me to the diner while I do the job for Annie.” None of this should sound suspicious, but Derek’s anxiety seems to want it to. “He says he could use some help holding up the farm.”

In reality, Derek would be useless on the farm, and he knows that. Although he  _ can _ water Will’s garden. And collect his vegetables. And look beautiful for Will’s viewing pleasure.

Lol.

Eric seems to deliberate for a moment before responding. When he does, he starts stirring again, but he’s still looking at Derek sideways. “Well, okay, honey,” he replies, and Derek realizes in his tone that there’s a certain mischief there, which—  _ yo _ — Eric doesn’t believe him. He really  _ does _ think he’s going to live with his secret female lover, doesn’t he? “You’ve been a lovely guest,” Eric adds. There’s no bite in his tone at all, not even any of the Southern passive-aggression he’s heard him use with Kent and a few other choice individuals before. It’s genuine, and it’s kind. “I’ll be sad to see you go. But happy you’re finding your place in town, of course.”

“I’ll come by and visit,” Derek tells him, and he actually does mean that. A return to life without Eric’s baking every day is going to be interesting. He might lose a few pounds. “Promise.”

“You’re always welcome here,” Eric says, with a nod. “And I mean it.”

“Thank you, Eric.” He smiles, and with the weight of this off his shoulders, it’s a little easier to do so. “It’s been really chill.”

“Thank  _ you _ ,” Eric replies, turning off the gas under his bubbling pot, and wiping his hands on his apron. “My little inn is a lot better off because of your help.”

He tucks his hands into his pockets, nodding. “I was glad to help.”

“Now, tell me.” Eric moves his pot off the stove entirely, placing it on a pot holder that’s set out on the counter. His jars are stacked in an elaborate tower that looks like it could collapse and cause a walking hazard for months if bumped the wrong way. Derek catalogues that he definitely shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near there. “How long will you be in town after you move?”

_ Ha _ . Derek has absolutely no idea. Like a due date in college, he’s started to treat his perpetual stuckness as if it will go away if he doesn’t think about it. “Honestly, Eric, I have no idea,” he says, with a small shrug. “It’s day by day for me right now.”

Eric gives him a smile that looks sympathetic, or maybe just sad. “Well, I’m here if you ever need anything, honey.” He walks over to him and holds out his arms. “Do you mind if I give you a parting hug?”

Derek laughs. “Not at all.”

It’s a good hug. Eric’s hair smells like blueberry jam, for some reason. The relief washes through him as he lets go. He thought this would be more difficult. All he can do now is itch to get to Will’s.

“Now, uh,” he says. “How much is left on my room tab?”

*

Eric offers him a ride back to Will’s, but he’s headed to the diner instead, where he tosses his stuff in the back of Will’s truck and spends the rest of the afternoon eating a sandwich at the bar and then consulting with Kent about paint-related things.

_ Hiding in plain sight is easier _ , Will said last night, as they lay in bed, resting close to each other.  _ If people think you’re boarding with me for business reasons, they’ll take it at face value _ .

So when Will’s shift is over, he brings him home. And that’s that.

“Welcome,” Will murmurs, as he leads him through the doorway by the hand. He’s been here plenty of times, but tonight feels different.

Will kisses him gently in the mudroom, and says, with that softness that only comes out in private, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Derek smiles at him. “I am, too, babe.” He pauses. “And thank you.”

Tonight, he’s here to stay.


	30. malik & james

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning today: another narrator-POV anxiety experience. Remember when Johnson said shit was about to start getting real?

_ July 23rd, 1961 _

_ Day 107 In Good Haven _

Sunday mornings with Will are Derek’s favorite.

It’s mostly because that’s the one morning Will sleeps in. This morning, when Derek wakes up, Will’s face is resting close by on the pillow, looking up at the ceiling and wide awake, his fingers combing gently through Derek’s curls. They’re skin to skin under the sheets, clothed only in the underwear they were wearing when they crawled in and engaged in some mildly forbidden activity late last night.

They haven’t  _ done _ it yet, but Derek can feel the steady escalation of want between them, and he has a feeling it’s not so far off.

He is  _ so _ ready for the day it comes.

He rolls over a little and presses a light kiss to Will’s shoulder. The freckles cover it like stars, raindrops, dust in the sunlight.

Will’s eyes flick down to him. They’re the color of honey, and the morning light does him  _ good _ . “Good morning, Der.” His voice is almost husky with sleep, and Derek is a big fan, thank you very much.

“Hi.” He’s getting seriously used to waking up next to him. Inching up to line up with him on the pillow, he blinks the sleep out of his eyes— or at least does his best; his limbs still feel heavy— and settles back down into the mattress as Will rubs his bare back.

“How did you sleep?” If his state of alertness is any indication, Will has definitely been awake and just laying here for a little while.

Derek can’t say the same for himself, though. He yawns, which probably makes him look ugly, and says, “Like a baby.”

Will smiles with half his mouth. “Good,” he hums, then kisses his forehead, smoothing out the curls that are no doubt a disaster. Will tolerates him in the mornings, which is a miracle. “I was thinking,” he continues, in an even voice, a soft one, “we could go somewhere today.”

“Go somewhere?” Derek echoes. He props his head on one hand. “Like where?”

Will takes a second, breathing in, and then looks at the ceiling again. “There’s a lake,” he says, “about an hour from here, give or take. My pa used to take me fishing on it.” He pauses a moment, then adds, “It’s a quiet place to sit, if you wanna get out of town. I know a spot where no one will bother us.” He threads his fingers through his own hair, sunset shades in the light. “And I could catch dinner.”

Derek has no idea why, but leaving Good Haven sounds incredibly appealing right now, even if just for something to do. He leans his elbow on Will’s chest and asks, “Are you inviting me to do dad activities with you right now?”

Will chuckles, bringing his eyes back down to him, and says, “I’m only saying it to give you the option.” He pauses, then frowns a little and adds, “We’d… have to be more careful than usual.”

Given that the only time he so much as says more than hello to Will is when they’re safely tucked away on this property, alone with each other, Derek has no idea what being ‘more careful than usual’ means. But if Will wants to get out of town for the day, and it involves sitting by a lake in the sun, he really doesn’t want to say no to that. “I’m down for it,” he says. “Can I bring writing stuff?”

“Well, of course you could,” Will says, like he’s asked a question with an obvious answer. “There’s some good scenery there, too, that you could draw.”

“Oh,  _ William _ .” He swoons with a smile. “You know the way to my heart.”

Will chuckles and reaches for him. His arms are so muscular that Derek needs to take a breather, as he welcomes him into his embrace. The kiss they share is full of morning breath, but it’s nice all the same.

“We oughta get ready, then,” Will tells him. “We can make a day of it.”

*

They load a few things into the bed of Will’s truck— a little icebox in case he catches fish, plus lunch for themselves, non-perishable stuff that doesn’t need to be kept cool. Derek brings his bag along, full of notebooks and pencils, and Will puts a fishing rod and a tackle box back there as well.

It doesn’t take them so long to get ready, so once they’ve packed the truck, they’re off. It’s weird to leave town with him, and Derek tenses a little as they drive over the town line, like maybe time will pull some trick on him.

But nothing happens. They drive along, in the red truck, together, and nothing happens.

“We need a story,” he tells Will, as they cruise down the highway. “In case we get caught together.”

“Caught together?” Will raises his eyebrows. He has one hand at the top of the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift, and Derek kind of wants to hold it. “If we get caught together, we’re two friends on a fishing trip. But I promise you that won’t happen. I know the right spot to go.”

“Well.” Derek pauses, looking out the window. All he sees for miles on either side of the road is green. “Okay.”

He looks at the trees flying by for about thirty more seconds, with the gentle drone of the radio as background noise, and then turns back to Will and announces, “We should still come up with a story.”

Will looks to him, with something like amusement in his expression. “For your entertainment?”

“For both of our entertainment,” Derek replies. He leans back in his seat to think. “We’re, uh… we’re traveling musicians. A musical duo.”

“Okay,” Will replies, with a small smile that says he’ll play along. “Why don’t we have instruments?”

“Because I sing,” he says, “and you play piano.”

“Ah.” Will nods. “Yes. Okay.” He turns it over in his head for a silent second more, then says, “Wait, a musical duo going fishing?”

Derek flashes a grin. “It’s our day off!”

“Where are we headed next?”

“Portland.” He pauses, tries to remember the geography of this area. That has to be the closest major city, right? “We just came from Canada.”

“Canada,” Will echoes. “Are we Canadian?”

“No. We’re just living the high life.”

Will snorts a little. “And by ‘living the high life’ you mean going fishing at some random lake in Maine.”

“Look, we travel a lot, okay?” He leans his elbow out the open window. “We’re trying to get a taste for the local culture.”

“Do we have fake names?”

“Yes.” He pauses. These need to be good. For scientific purpose, of course. “Uhhh. Malik Green, and, uh…” He glances to him for a moment before settling on, “James Murphy.”

“Very creative,” Will says. “Thank you. Is Green your mother’s maiden name?”

“No. It’s my favorite color.”

“Why aren’t I James Red, then?”

“ _ Pfff _ . Because that doesn’t roll off the tongue.” He leans on his elbow again. “Uh… anyway. We’ve been traveling the East Coast for three years looking for work.”

Will whistles. “We’ve been out of work for three years?”

“No! We’re like troubadours!”

“ _ Ohhh _ .” He pauses, then nods. “Okay.”

“ _ And _ …” Derek walks his left hand over to the gear shift, tickling his fingers across the top of Will’s palm. “We’re secretly lovers.”

Will takes a moment at this new development, then remarks, “Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of the fake story?”

“No.” He squeezes the top of his hand. “It’s sexy.” Will definitely tries to laugh at him, but his lips twitch a little, and Derek seems him redden, which is the  _ best _ possible reaction. He keeps going, painting the elaborate scenario in his mind. “We had a night of passion a year and a half ago at a seedy hotel in Jersey City.” He pauses. “We went two entire weeks without talking about it—”

“Jesus,” Will mumbles.

“But neither of us could get it out of our minds.”

“Mm.” He nods vaguely.

“And then,” Derek adds, “you confessed your undying desire for me.”

“Why did I crack first?” he asks.

“Uh, duh,” he says, finally actually taking his hand. “Because I’m chill as fuck.”

Will rolls his eyes so far into the back of his head that Derek fears for his ability to see the road for a second.

“Anyway.” He leans back in the passenger’s seat again, but holds onto his hand. “Now we’re lovers.” He pauses. “And it’s our dream to move into a farmhouse in Maine.”

Will sighs.

“And change our names to Derek Nurse and William Poindexter.”

Derek bites his lip while he waits for a laugh, and even though Will looks thoroughly amused, it doesn’t exactly come. Instead, he says, “You’ve thought about this.”

“Not at all,” he replies. “That’s just the power of a storytelling imagination.”

“ _ Right _ , of course.”

“But,” he adds, pointing to him with his free hand. “If we ever need to change our identities. We have a full story right there.”

“Perfect.” A smile peeks in Will’s expression, and Derek cannot stop grinning. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Derek squeezes his hand. “Good,” he says, and they drive along into the summer day.

*

The spot he knows  _ is _ secluded, and Derek knows this because it takes a bunch of dirt roads and then a walk down a half-mile path in the woods to even get there. When they reach it, it’s worth the trek— for the view. The trees open up to a clearing of some rocks, and past them is a lake which has to be at least a few square miles wide.

“C’mon,” Will says, taking his hand and carrying his fishing stuff in the other. “I usually sit on the rock out there.”

Derek does  _ not _ trust himself to navigate on top of a bunch of rocks over water effectively, so he clings to Will’s hand like it’s a lifeline. “Where—” He nearly trips over a crack between rocks, and tightens his grip. “I mean, how long have you known this is here? Was your pa the one who found it?”

“No.” Will pauses. “Or at least I don’t think so.” He steps over a jagged part of a boulder, and Derek is definitely going to fall off of this formation and crack his head open and die. At least he’s self-aware. “It was a family picnic spot, when I was younger. Always on Sundays in the summer.”

This place, Derek realizes,  _ means _ something to him. The way he says it, it’s clear that it’s not  _ just _ a fishing spot. And here he is, sharing that with him. Letting him into all these corners of his life.

“ _ Derek _ .” Will looks over his shoulder, all gentle concern. “Be careful. Hold on.” He stops with his feet on two different rocks, putting his rod and tackle box down, and holds out both his hands. “You’re not coordinated enough to do this on your own.”

“I’m offended,” Derek replies, but takes his hands anyway.

Will guides him the rest of the way to the edge of the rock, careful in his movements and never too sudden, and Derek is shocked when he reaches there unscatched. They set down the blanket they brought from the truck, and Derek takes his spot in the sun, reclining as the warmth hits his face.

“Oh, babe,” he hums, closing his eyes. “This is the  _ life _ .”

He hears Will chuckle, as he’s going back for his rod and tackle box. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“It’s  _ so _ nice.” He opens his eyes to look out over the water. A gentle breeze ripples across its surface, making bumpy waves, and the shore on the other side is visible but a good ways away. There isn’t a cloud in the blue sky.

It’s interesting, he realizes, that this water is okay, but Will won’t go near the ocean.

Will sits down next to him, with his fishing stuff, wordlessly, and starts to do something with his bait. Derek drops his head onto his shoulder, and Will leans back into him. He feels him sigh. He’s warm and strong, and Derek isn’t sure he’s ever been more relaxed than in these moments with him in the sun.

“What are you catching me?” he asks, of his fishing rod, as Will puts a poor unsuspecting earthworm on its hook.

Will does something with the reel. “Good question,” he replies. “Whatever the lake wants to give us, I guess.”

“Nice.” Derek smiles up at him. “My sexy fisherman lover.”

“Jesus Christ.” Will casts his rod. “You say the strangest things sometimes.”

“Aw, you—” Derek catches himself dead in the middle of that sentence. What he  _ wanted _ to say— what he was about to say— was  _ aw, you love me _ . But since it immediately occurs to him that Will, in fact, does not love him, at least as far as he knows, because they haven’t had that kind of conversation yet, he realizes it’s probably not the best thing to say out loud.

He didn’t think he’d be falling in love.

Instead of finishing that thought, he sits up straight again and looks at the place where Will’s line has fallen in the water. It’s a few yards out, and it just sits there, the line waving gently in the breeze. “So this is, like, a process that requires a lot of patience, right?”

“Plenty of it,” Will says. “That’s why I brought you.”

Derek leans back on the blanket and laughs into the open sky. “Oh, you are  _ such _ an asshole.”

Will’s smirk is self-satisfied. Derek wants to kiss it. It’s easy to want to kiss him, he’s realizing. Extremely easy. “I know,” Will says after a brief pause. “But you stick around anyway.”

“That I do.” He digs into his bag, on the other side of himself, and brings out his sketchbook and a pencil. “Because you’re so irresistible.”

Will rolls his eyes.

Derek flips through his pages— lately, they’ve been sketches from around the farm, like the barn, or the chickens (from a distance because those things are evil), or the plants in the garden. There’s plenty of Will, too, interspersed between the pages. Will out in the pasture with the cows. Will with a basket walking through the vegetable garden. Will sitting on the porch, taking a moment for himself, elbows resting on his knees.

“Going to draw?” Will (fishing) asks him now, eyes still out on his lure.

“I think so,” Derek replies, and he looks out over the scenery. “There’s plenty to focus on.”

“That there is.”

The lake is pretty and everything. Really, it is. But most of Derek’s drawings end up including the person sitting next to him instead.

*

_ you tell me, _

_ there’s a place you know _

_ tucked away where no one else can find it _

_ it’s safe, you say _

_ a place where we can go _

_ to be us, nothing more or less _

_ to be you and me _

_ and we’ll be safe there _

_ it’s a seat with a view, you say _

_ and that it is _

_ blue water, open air, the breeze on my face _

_ but the view you describe, _

_ i find it elsewhere _

_ not in the nature or the trees, in the lake below our resting place _

_ no, you’re the view _

_ and when i take you in _

_ i think, this is safe _

_ this is nice _

_ this is a view i could stand _

_ for a very long time _

*

They make a whole day of it. Will catches five fish— two are too small and he throws them back, and then one is what he says is an Arctic char, which he doesn’t want to cook. The other two, according to him, are a freshwater salmon and a trout, and he packs them in the ice cooler. Derek looks away while he puts them out of their misery.

“All part of the cycle of life,” Will says, as he puts the cooler in the truck bed. “We eat them, and they eat other things, and the world keeps turning.”

Derek slings his bag of books into the truck next to his cooler. “You sound like a cowboy.”

From the other side of the truck bed, Will raises his eyebrows. “What about that was cowboy-like to you?”

“Okay, maybe you just sound like a rural country bumpkin.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Okay, it’s time to get you home.”

Derek laughs his way into the passenger’s seat, and they drive, and everything is normal right up until about the thirty-minute mark of the drive.

He’s not sure what starts it. These days, he can barely tell. But a twinge of anxiety registers at the back of his mind somewhere, and he tries in earnest to ignore it, like that’ll make it go away. It doesn’t. It rises steadily, and he’s tapping his fingers against his knee to an invisible beat, trying to figure out their surroundings and how much further they have to drive, when he finally cracks.

“Uh, Will?” He swallows, as he feels Will’s eyes on him from the driver’s side. “How much longer?”

“About half an hour,” Will replies. “But I have to stop for gas.”

“Oh.” He nods and looks out the window. All of the highway looks the same, but these trees seem endless all of a sudden. “Is this the same way we came?”

“Yes.” Will sounds confident, and completely unfazed, which means Derek should feel that way, too. He trusts him, believes him.

But he doesn’t recognize any of this, and it’s making him nauseous all of a sudden. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.” Will arches an eyebrow. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m, uh.” He tries a deep breath. It’s not a fun time.  _ Fuck.  _ Is he really about to mess up this entire day by being anxious right now? “I was okay.”

“But you aren’t now,” Will finishes. “Did something happen?”

“No— no, nothing happened.” He runs his hands over his face. His fingers are cold, which makes no sense, because it’s so warm out; he was warm all day. “I just—”

“Der.” Will’s hand is on his shoulder, firm, but with clear intent to comfort. “It’s okay. I’m here. How can I help?”

“I’m sorry, Will— I just—”  _ Breathe _ . “Are you sure you know where we are?”

“Yes, Derek.” He squeezes his shoulder. “If it looks different to you, it’s because we have to go five minutes out of the way to get to the gas station.”

“Oh.” He exhales a little, even though it’s shaky. “So it  _ is _ different.”

“It’s the same route.” Will’s voice is even. “It just includes a stop for fuel. There’s a gas station somewhere up here, about half a mile up. You’ll see in a minute.”

“Somewhere?” The ambiguity sets his brain off again. He cranes his neck to the windshield, searching, but all he can see on the road ahead are trees. “What if— what if it’s not there anymore?”

“I promise you it is.”

“If we get lost, we can get stopped—” Oh,  _ God _ , his head hurts; the thoughts are reeling out of nowhere. “And we’d look suspicious, and I could get in trouble—”

“Derek.” Will takes his hand away from his shoulder, but his voice is just as even. Derek feels so tangibly  _ stupid _ for freaking out about this. “Baby. Take a deep breath.”

“I’m  _ trying _ to take a deep breath.” It comes out more forcefully than he intends, and he winces at himself, staring at his shoes on the truck’s floor mat. “I just.” His chest feels so tight. “I want to go home.”

“I know,” Will says. “We’ll be there soon. I promise.” He’s quiet for just a second, while Derek tries to get a handle on his breathing, and then Will nods at something ahead of them. “See? There’s the gas station.”

When Derek looks up to see, he jerks his neck, which doesn’t at all help with the ache in his head. But Will is correct— coming up on their right is a small, old-fashioned gas station, with a few pumps and a small building attached to it.

“We’ll fuel up really quickly, and then we’ll get right back on the road,” Will tells him, as he signals to turn. “I promise.”

“Yeah.” Derek feels so ill. “Uh. Do they have a bathroom?”

Will cranes his neck as he pulls up next to a pump. “Looks like it,” he says. “See that door on the backside of the building?”

He’s right— there’s what looks like a bathroom door right there, and it’s no more than thirty feet or so from where he’s stopped the truck. “Yeah,” he replies. “Yeah, I, uh— I see it.”

Will pulls the keys out of the ignition. “I can wait for you if you need to use it.”

“Um.” Maybe he needs to be sick or something. “Chill. Yeah. I think I will.”

“Okay.” Will pulls his wallet from his pocket, then, as he’s opening the driver’s side door, meets his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says, still gentle. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Derek nods. He does  _ not  _ feel well. “Okay.”

He walks across the asphalt and fumbles at the door to the small bathroom, which, thankfully, is unlocked— going to the attendant and asking for the key would not have been a fun time. It’s pretty gross inside, like most gas station bathrooms, but he just closes the door and turns on the sink, to splash some water on his face.

Chill. That’s what he needs. He  _ has _ to chill. Nothing is wrong, and he’s safe, and everything is fine. He just has to chill.

The toilet looks sketchy, and once he’s shocked himself with the chill of cold water, toweling it off with a napkin from the dispenser, he no longer feels like he’s actually going to get physically sick. He takes a long breath, looks at himself in the dirty mirror. He doesn’t even  _ look _ that rough. It was a good day in the sun.

It was a good day, period. Everything was  _ fine _ . And his anxiety has to go and fuck it up, just like it fucks everything up—  _ agh _ , his head hurts so badly—

But splashing his face helped, and this bathroom is gross, and Will said they’re only thirty minutes from returning to the farm. So he’ll go and get in the truck again. He’s okay. He’s fine. Maybe he’ll be able to fall asleep for some of the rest of the drive. Or Will could put on some music.

He’s okay. He puts his hand on the doorknob and takes a long breath.

He’s chill.

He pulls the door back open and steps outside.

There’s a blast of air that’s cooler than he’s prepared for, and he shivers a little as he shuts the door behind him. It was humid a second ago. Maybe there’s a storm coming in.

But then— wait.

Where’s Will’s truck?

It was right there, next to the closest pump to the bathroom door, and now it’s not. Did he pull around back?

Derek walks around the building, but there’s nothing. There isn’t a single car here. The chill from moments ago evaporates completely. Where’s Will?

He can’t have just…  _ left  _ him here? Derek circles back to the pumps, but that’s when he sees— a little more clearly— the full picture of the scene.

Because the thing is, the pumps are rustier than he recalls seeing them five minutes ago. Actually, they look out of order. And when he turns to inspect the building a little closer, its windows are boarded up.

Derek tries his  _ very _ hardest not to absolutely flip shit.

What the fuck happened.

He was in that bathroom for two minutes, right? Maybe less. He paces between gas pumps, searches for any sign of Will, but there’s nothing. The only cars are the ones passing on the road— and that road is a  _ lot _ busier than it was when they were driving it just now, by the way— it looks more like a highway. And it was  _ not _ a highway before.

It’s— it’s full of speeding traffic, and the cars— they’re all—

_ Modern. _

Derek is definitely going to be sick now.

Everything at the gas station is rusty or worn-down. There’s not a soul in sight, inside or outside the building. The cars on the road mean other  _ people _ , but—

But holy fuck, he thinks he just traveled back to his own time.

That’s not possible. Right? He walked into the bathroom and when he walked out, the gas station was abandoned. Maybe he’s imagining it. He shakes himself out, turns on his buckling legs, and walks back into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

The bathroom looks the same. He looks at himself in the mirror, and so does he.

Okay. He’s going back outside now.

But nothing changes. The station is still abandoned. There’s rust on the pumps, and wear in the paint on the building, and  _ Will _ , Will and his truck, they’re gone, completely gone, lost to another dimension—

Derek runs his hands through his hair. He’s been dropped back in his own time, and Will is gone, and he has  _ absolutely no idea _ where he is, and he— he can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe, and he can’t think. He hunches over like that’ll help, and it doesn’t. Where is he? He has no phone, no money, no means of getting himself anywhere. He could flag down a driver on the highway, but—  _ God _ , this is rural fucking Maine; someone could call the cops on him for suspicious activity. Or  _ worse _ — and  _ Will _ , oh, God, he must think he ran off or something, and he has  _ no way  _ to tell him where he is—

“Will?” he calls, like that’ll change a thing. All that answers him is the sound of the freeway and the wind in the trees. His vocal cords feel strained, like he’s been yelling for hours. “ _ Will _ ?”

He’s going to pass out.

*

Derek has been in that bathroom for at least ten minutes.

Will sits at the steering wheel of the truck, eyeing the door he disappeared into. He doesn’t want to  _ rush _ him, because he has no reason to rush— but he’s starting to wonder if he’s alright.

He seemed nervous. Anxious. Will hopes he didn’t do anything to set it off. He knows it’s sometimes random, but he wonders if he was too impatient with him about where they were going, or if something about the day they spent together unsettled him. Was it the fish? He felt bad killing the fish in front of him. They’ll make a good dinner, but he knows how Derek feels about animals and such.

Will taps his fingers on the wheel, still looking at the bathroom door.

Maybe he ought to go check on him.

*

Derek can’t breathe.

He locks himself in the abandoned bathroom again, sinking to the floor against the wall, which is absolutely nasty, but the toilet is so out of order that it’s not even close to being able to sit on. He presses his face against his knees and breathes— long, slow attempts at breaths that come out shaky and half-choking.

Where can he go? He has no idea where to go. He’s going to have to flag someone down on the highway— but  _ then _ what, then what— all his stuff is with Will; everything he has with him, it’s all at the farm or in Will’s truck, and—

And  _ Will _ has no idea where he went; he has no way of telling him this, and the only thing he wants is him right this second, so he can come down from his awful panic, get his feet on level ground, because,  _ God _ , Will is the only person save Chowder who has ever been able to talk him down, and he just—

He didn’t want to leave like that, not without saying goodbye, not in the middle of something so good, and he just. He  _ cannot _ remember how to breathe, and he doesn’t remember the last time he was this anxious, this  _ helpless _ —

This was a bad idea, leaving Good Haven. This was such a bad idea.

He has to leave here, right? Because if he’s discovered, he’ll get arrested for loitering or something, and then he’ll go to Maine jail, if he even makes it that far, and someone will have to bail him out, and it’ll be on his permanent record, and—

He can’t do this. He can’t even stand up. He’s going to be in this abandoned bathroom, paralyzed by his stupid fucking anxiety, for the rest of his brief life.

_ Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.  _ He should call Chowder. He wishes he had a fucking  _ phone _ on him.

But— his throat feels choked-up all of a sudden— he never got to say goodbye to—

The door flies open, and he jolts, covering his face. Here are the cops. Here’s where he dies—

“Derek?”

Everything freezes.

Will is just as he last saw him, in his fishing clothes with his bad farmer’s tan, concern etched onto his face as he takes in the sight of him. “Why are you on the floor?”

“ _ Will _ ,” he says, and it comes out like a sob. Will shuts the door behind him in a hurry, then locks it and races to kneel next to him.

“Hey,” Will whispers, and when he touches him, his hands are careful, but they’re  _ real _ , and he’s real, and he’s here, and Derek must have gone back again, but he feels so fucking  _ scared _ and he just—  _ God _ , fuck, he can’t breathe— “Hey, Derek, what happened?” Will wraps him in an embrace characteristic of the way he always comforts him when anxious. “What’s wrong?”

But he can’t find it in him to speak. He’s suddenly aware that he’s crying, and isn’t sure how long he has been. His face is stained with warm tears, and he feels Will go to wipe them away with his shirtsleeve.

“I’m so sorry,” Will says, “if you were this anxious and I didn’t realize it. I didn’t mean to— it’s not something I did, is it?”

Derek sniffs and chokes on a breath. “No,” he manages to get out, pressing his face into his shoulder. “No, I—” But how does he even begin to explain what just happened?

Will squeezes him tight. He knows the door is locked, and that it’s just the two of them— but he has never felt more scared in his life.

He feels five years old, awoken by a nightmare.

“Just breathe,” Will whispers, kissing the top of his head, and they sit there, a heap on the dirty bathroom floor, while Derek figures out how to think straight again.

Will is wiping his tears again when he finally feels like he can speak. “Will,” he tells him, and his voice is strained, “I— I think I just went back to my own time.”

Something flashes in Will’s eyes, and he looks confused. Lost. “You what?”

“I just.” He takes a sharp breath in, and then he’s welling up again.

“ _ Shhh _ , baby,” Will whispers, pulling him into his chest again. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

“But you  _ weren’t _ here—” Derek squeezes his eyes shut, his face against his shirt. Will smells like comfort, and he feels like it too. “I was alone, and I don’t know how it happened— I just—”

“You think…” Will speaks slowly now, still holding him close. “You think you traveled back?”

He lets out an involuntary sob. “I  _ know  _ I did.”

“Derek.” There’s concern in his voice all of a sudden. “How could that happen?”

“I just—” He has absolutely no idea.

Will holds him close and says nothing, for a few moments. He cries into his shirt, and he wraps in him, and he’s safe now but he was  _ so _ far from it just a moment ago.

“We can talk about this,” Will says. He’s being so gentle. Derek loves him.  _ Fuck _ , he completely does. And he definitely shouldn’t say that, as much as he wants to. “And should. But I think we should leave here.”

Getting up felt like an impossible task a minute ago, but with Will here, leaving seems like the best thing he could do right now. He nods, still a little teary, and holds tight to him. “Yes, please,” he whispers. “I— I want to leave.”

“C’mon, then.” Will stands, slowly, and pulls him up with him, like he’s conscious of Derek’s inability to stand on his own two feet. “I’ll go out and leave the door open, and you follow me right after, okay?”

Derek shivers. He holds tight to him for a moment more before Will releases him. “Okay,” he says, with a nod. “I— okay.”

Will does just as he promised, leaving the bathroom door open on its non-rusted hinges, and Derek watches from the doorway as he walks to the truck, which is right in the sun where he left it, what feels like an hour ago.

When he can’t take it anymore, that separation, like Will and the truck and the sunny afternoon will slip through his fingers at any second, he darts back to the pump and throws himself into the passenger’s seat.

He exhales into his hands. He still can’t quite remember how to breathe.

“C’mon,” Will says. “C’mon, Der. Let’s get you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come and hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! Weekly Wednesday updates will continue until the story is over, but don't count on Wednesday as the ONLY update day of the week anymore— I'll be sprinkling in other chapters between Wednesdays. As always, thank you very very much for reading. <3


	31. a place for us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my friends! A few things for the start of this one. Content warning (for my author's note, not the actual text of the chapter): discussion of recent events re: racism and police brutality.  
> I wrote chapter 30, which I posted last Wednesday, several weeks ago. I put the chapter up last Wednesday before I had learned the news of George Floyd's murder, which sparked the protests that have been raging in the US (where I live) for almost a week now. The reason this random fanfiction on the internet has anything to do with the news is that, in rereading some of the past chapters of this story, I've realized in light of recent events that I haven't provided adequate content-warning for Derek's fear of the police.  
> I know this is a small issue in the story, relatively speaking, and it'll continue to stay that way. Although Derek has real and valid anxiety about law enforcement both in 1961 and in his own time, we won't see any cops in this story, ever, and we certainly won't see any demonstration of police brutality. The fact remains that this is a real issue now, in the modern age, and was VERY much an issue in the 60s. My occasional mention of Derek's fear of the cops is a reflection of something that I always imagine is part of his life, growing up as a mixed-race Black man in New York City with an anxiety disorder. Obviously, time-traveling to an era when legally mandated racial discrimination was in far greater supply than it is now is going to awaken some of that fear, and though this is not a story about Derek suffering at the hands of 1960s injustices, he would certainly worry about it.  
> You can't write a story set in the 60s with one-half of its main pair of characters being a queer Black man without addressing this issue, but this is a story about Derek and Will and their relationship, first and foremost. I'm mentioning this now because, what with the horrific things being done to Black people in this country by the police, I realize now that some of these mentions of Derek's police anxiety may be triggering.  
> So please take care of yourselves, everybody, and know that I will from this point forward warn you in the author's note if there's going to be mention of this in a chapter. This chapter does contain some fear-of-being-discovered anxiety in terms of Will and Derek's relationship, but nothing quite like Derek's panic from last chapter.  
> Fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum, so I wanted to be sure I addressed this. This is a fanfiction, but the world around us is not in a good place. I think that's all from me for now. Black lives matter, and I hope all of you are safe.

_ July 26th, 1961 _

_ Day 110 In Good Haven _

It gets harder, after that, to be apart from him.

At night, by his side, Derek dreams of the panic at the gas station, of the rusted pumps and the empty parking spots. He wakes up in a sweat and curls closer to him, and Will holds him in his sleep, like he knows.

During the days, they’re mostly together, even if at a distance, while Derek tackles the latest paint project. Annie’s is coming along quickly, more quickly than the inn did— maybe because Eric was always having him take baked good breaks or wandering around making conversation with him. The diner patrons do still occasionally make conversation, some more microaggressive than others, but they’re not quite as distracting as the temptation of a freshly baked cherry pie or a glass of way-too-sweet iced tea in the sun.

Good Haven is a safe place; Derek knows this, and yet it feels like some kind of giant oxymoron. The place that has trapped him in another century is also the safest place he can be right now, because he’s stuck here unless he’s by himself at random gas stations.

Maybe he really should have called Chowder. Just to tell him he’s safe.

Or to say out loud, to someone in the world, that he’s in love with a man who was born in 1935.

He shouldn’t say it, and he knows he shouldn’t. But he has permitted himself space in his brain to think it. Waking up next to him each morning and falling asleep with him in the night— it does things to him. It makes him see how  _ easy _ this domestic life is with him, how natural it comes to be under his roof without a care in the world but his art and his random hired work around town. To watch him do his chores around the yard. To make sandwiches for lunch. To  _ be _ with him, the way you are when a relationship is getting serious.

And yet— the fact remains. This is 1961. And there are a number of obstacles involved in falling for a man who lives in another century.

Like when he’s finishing up a taping job in the dining room, getting a little work in after hours so he doesn’t interfere with customers, while he waits for Will to finish up his shift close. The jukebox is playing— Will was going to shut it off, but he’d interfered.  _ Leave it, babe _ , he said.  _ It’s mood music. _

Will had rolled his eyes, but smiled, and walked back to the bar fixing his funny work hat.

The front door is locked, and there’s not a soul in sight. Derek thinks he knows this song, but he didn’t before this summer. Bent over beneath a booth taping the bottom of the wall, he hums along with the tune; the lyrics are still too unfamiliar.

“Having fun over there?” Will calls, from where he’s cleaning the bar.

Derek pokes his head out from under the table. “Oh,  _ extremely _ ,” he replies. “When you think about it, it’s just like taping a hockey stick.”

Will chuckles. Hunched over the countertop, still in his apron and hat, he looks criminally attractive. Derek wonders if there’s funny business in their future, later tonight. They still haven’t  _ done it _ yet, but they’ve been relatively active since opening the door that ultimately leads there.

Maybe, if he puts the moves on…

But then again, probably not  _ that _ tonight. It still feels like it’d be a little too soon for Will.

“And this is my jam, by the way,” he adds, pointing to the jukebox. “It’s Patsy Cline, right?”

“Uh.” Will glances that way, then nods slowly, tossing his rag over his shoulder. “I think so.” 

In the dining room’s light, he almost looks just the same as he did the day they met. It was so long ago, and yet it feels like barely any time has passed at all.

He wonders how long it’s been in the real world.

Patsy continues singing along to his taping, and when he runs out on his current roll, he figures it’s his signal to stop for the night. Also, his ass is starting to hurt from kneeling down like this. He stands up and stretches, letting out a questionable grunt toward the ceiling, and then strolls over to the bar, where Will is still doing his miscellaneous closing chores.

He deliberates for a hot second, then shrugs and jumps up onto the end of the bartop, sitting on it and swinging his legs over the side. “Hey, sexy waiter.”

Will flicks his rag in his general direction. “Off the counter,” he replies. “I just cleaned it.”

“Or what?” Derek flashes a wild grin. “You’ll kick my ass?”

Will rolls his eyes. “I mean it.”

“ _ Babe _ .” He reaches for him with both arms, still swinging his legs like he is five years old. “C’mere. This has been a fantasy of mine.”

“You have a fantasy to put your rear end on the counter at my workplace?” Will’s back is to him; he’s cleaning out the coffee pot. “Tomorrow, when I give customers their food, I’ll say, you’re in luck. The very place you’re eating was home to Derek Nurse’s behind no less than twelve hours ago—”

“I’m sure they’ll be honored.” He leans back a little, knocking a napkin dispenser over in the process. Will whips around as if something much more breakable than a metal dispenser has fallen over, and relaxes when he sees Derek fixing it. “Half this town is probably secretly lusting over my ‘behind’.”

Will pinches his brow and sighs. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

“And yet.” He can’t stop grinning. “My behind is all yours.”

“Okay, that’s it.” Will walks back over to him, waves his rag menacingly, and announces, “I have to re-clean it now. Get off.”

“Aw, c’mere, babe.” Derek wraps his arms around his shoulders, slotting him between his legs. “Just give me, like, two minutes to love on you.”

Will scoffs, but he settles into a kiss anyway. Derek nearly cellies when he feels Will’s hands on his waist.  _ Got him. _ It’s a long, sweet kiss, and he kind of wants to make a smart-ass remark about seducing him in his workplace, but it would probably get him smacked with the rag. He kisses him again instead, with Patsy singing along in the background. He’s starting to think that this could get interesting and maybe a little freaky when Will pauses to breathe, and then freezes in place entirely.

“Babe?” Derek peeks an eye open. But Will isn’t looking at him. His eyes are trained on something beyond him entirely, and his face is drained of all color.

Derek’s entire heart stops beating.

There’s someone here.

“Will?” A voice breaks the silence— oh my  _ God _ , it’s  _ Eric _ . “Derek?”

“Okay,” a second voice says, which is familiar as well. Will is still frozen. Derek looks over his shoulder to find Kent and Eric standing side-by-side, each carrying big-ass crates of what looks like Eric’s jam. They’re right in the threshold between the bar and the employees-only rear of the diner, and while Eric looks shellshocked as he takes in the very obvious sight, Kent just looks vigilant. “You didn’t tell me you’d be here after hours,” he says, and Derek knows this is directed at Will.

“I— I’m so sorry, Kenny.” Will is very, very still in his arms. Derek has no idea if he should let go of him or not. “I wasn’t going to be here much longer.”

“ _ Lord _ , y’all, I’m sorry,” Eric whispers, with huge, dark eyes still darting between them. “I didn’t mean to— just  _ walk in _ ; I feel awful—”

“He stopped by for a jam run,” Kent says, gesturing to the crates, and his voice almost sounds apologetic, too. “I wouldn’t have come down if I knew—”

“I—” Will’s voice seems to get lost in his throat. “Eric. I’m—”

There’s so much realization dawning on Eric’s face all at once, but in Will, there is nothing but fear.

None of these guys have ever been outed before.

Derek turns a little, to address all three of them, and says, “Okay… everybody chill.” He takes a deep breath, feels three pairs of eyes on him, and adds, very deliberately, “I think we all have something in common here.”

He wonders, for a moment, if Eric will be angry that he knows. Will shared it with him weeks ago; it’s been like common knowledge for him. But Eric doesn’t look angry. He just holds his jam crate and stares. “And if we all stick together…” Derek adds, in a voice that doesn’t need to be low, but comes out that way anyway, “We can keep this right here, where it belongs.”

Kent nods and folds his arms. “Agreed,” he says, looking to his cousin for confirmation.

“I— of course I agree,” Eric says, and his voice reveals his need to survive and get by just as much as the rest of them. “But Derek— honey, I’m so sorry. I never knew—”

“You couldn’t have,” he tells him, simply and calmly. “I was being careful.”

“And  _ Will _ —” Derek feels him wince as Eric turns to him. “I didn’t— all this time, and I—”

“I’m sorry, Eric,” Will mumbles, and it sounds like it’s all he can say.

“It’s okay,” Derek says, desperate to fix this somehow. “All of you. It’s okay. We’re all chill, right here. And we have each other for support.”

Eric nods. Kent folds his arms. Will lets out a sharp exhale.

It’s an unspoken agreement.

Derek feels like he’s formed some kind of 1960s gay alliance.

*

_ July 27th, 1961 _

_ Day 111 In Good Haven _

They don’t talk about it until the next night.

The ride home is quiet, and not tense, aside from a little of Will’s obvious lingering shock from the encounter— but they don’t talk about it. They fall into bed with several kisses, but nothing more, and in the morning, Will is up early for his chores. They go to Annie’s together for the morning shift, and once several hours of barkeeping and painting have elapsed, they’re free to go. But they don’t talk about it. Not on the way home, not after Will’s afternoon chores, not over dinner.

Then after they’ve cleaned up from dinner, as he’s drying the last plate with one of his ma’s old rags, Will asks him, “Der?” He turns to look at him; there’s something like eagerness in Will’s eyes. “Wouldja care to go out to the pond with me?”

“The pond?” Derek glances out the window. It’s not dark out yet, but it’s getting there. “What for?”

Will bites his lip a little and pauses a second. “To— to rest. And look at the sky.”

It’s a simple invitation, but it’s all he needs.

*

Derek says Good Haven has no— what does he call it?— light pollution. In New York, he says, there’s too much artificial light on the ground to see into the sky beyond a clouded haze. His time at college in Massachusetts was a slight improvement, but he claims there’s nothing like the sky up here.

Will has never known a sky polluted by light, whatever that means, and he doesn’t want to imagine one. All his life, the Maine sky— the sky they lie beneath tonight— is the only sky he’s known.

It’s not their first time doing this. They walk through the path to the pond, and they lay on the grass on top of a quilt Will brought over. The air is warm, and there’s not much sound at all— if anything, the crickets sing, their music punctuated by the occasional bullfrog call from the nearby water.

Where Will stretches out, Derek is curled into him, with his head tucked into his neck. Their hands are laced together in the small space between their bodies, and they press against each other at the thigh, the shoulder, the ankle. Will is so, so aware of every place they touch, from the gentle brush of Derek’s curls against his chin to his thumb as it rubs against Will’s hand. He’s surrounded by the smell of him, of lavender and coconut oil. It’s come to be a familiar scent.

“How many stars, do you think?”

Derek’s voice is soft, so close by. His eyes point upward.

“In what?” Will replies. “The whole sky?”

Derek smiles a little. “Sure.”

“I…” Will says. “I have no idea.”

There’s a brief silence. Derek gives his hand a squeeze, which, though unexpected, sends a flutter through Will. He presses his palm to his stomach and wonders if Derek notices.

Then Derek says, “Okay, what do you think.”

It’s a question, but not phrased like one. “Of?”

“Are there more stars in the sky, or freckles on your person?”

The light may be low out here in the dark, but Will  _ knows  _ his face turns red at this. His cheeks heat, and he lets out a sigh rather than offering a response. At his silence, Derek adds, “No comment?”

Will rolls his eyes, fighting the laugh that threatens his stoicity. “None.”

Derek laughs without hesitation, his breath warm where it meets his neck, and then he shifts up briefly to press a kiss to Will’s burning ear.

In barely a whisper, he adds, “For what it’s worth, I prefer the freckles.”

Will can’t hold back the tiny smile that surfaces for that comment. He kicks himself for falling for the corny, but Derek’s corny is increasingly difficult  _ not _ to fall for.

From here, he half expects him to start waxing poetic about lying beneath a sea of lights or connecting freckles like stars in constellations, but he doesn’t, despite the fact that he’s gone there on multiple occasions. Instead, he cups the side of Will’s face in his free hand, and his fingers are smooth and warm as they trace across his still-flushed cheek. Derek plants one brief, soft kiss on his lips, then situates himself back where he was before— face tucked into his shoulder, eyes on the stars.

No, Will knows nothing different but this sky— this milky, silver-speckled thing that lies above them— but the fact that Derek is so fascinated with it fills his heart in ways he can’t describe.

For a long time after that, it’s quiet. Will closes his eyes, even— the night sky can get dizzying— but roots himself in the feeling of Derek’s hand in his. He can feel his body move against his with the sound of his quiet breaths.

Derek is a presence all his own. It’s impossible to feel alone this way, and it’s almost terrifying, Will thinks, how used to it he’s gotten. Used to Derek, used to this, used to having someone to hold and care about and maybe even—  _ gee _ — maybe even love.

But he can’t think like that, right? He can’t think like that. What happens to him when Derek isn’t here, if he keeps thinking like that?

Nevermind. He won’t think about that now. It’s been a stressful few days, with the incident at the gas station and then what happened last night at Annie’s.

He wants to ask him something, actually. But he has to figure out how to say it before he can.

In the brief moment last night, before Derek calmed them all, before their unspoken agreement to keep quiet— in that moment, when he locked eyes with Eric across the room, he was so tangibly terrified; he hasn’t felt quite that afraid in  _ years _ . Never before had he felt his whole world was in so much jeopardy— because here was Eric, learning his biggest secret, right on display for him in plain and unambiguous sight. And oh, sure, he knew things about Eric by that point, but Eric didn’t know those same things about him. And he could have told anyone. De facto family or not, he could have told anyone.

Will knows, now, that he won’t. No one will. It’s a secret stored safely within their unofficial four-person circle.

But Derek… Derek was so calm. Derek comes from a place where he never has to seriously consider such a worry.

Will wants to think about a world like that.

“Derek,” he says, and his voice is soft. “Is there a place for us?”

Derek is quiet, for a moment. He breathes steady against him, and he says nothing. Then, in a whisper, he echoes, “A place for us?”

“Yes.” Will pauses. He shifts against him, and their shoulders rub together. “That you know.”

Derek takes a long breath, eyes still on the sky. When he speaks again, he nods. “There’s a place for us,” he tells him. “There are— babe, there are  _ so many _ places for us. And for people like us.” Will can’t explain the comfort this brings, but relief washes over him like rain. “I wish…” Derek pauses. “I wish I could show you that. That it gets better.”

“Derek,” he says, squeezing his hand. “You  _ are _ showing me that.”

“But in a better way,” he replies. “In person. Where it’s safe. Y’know? I could take you to a safe place. We could… be  _ us _ , in a safe place.” He winds his fingers tighter around his hand. “I know a world where it’s okay to be us.”

Will might be shaking, but he’s the furthest thing from cold or nervous. “I like being us here,” he tells him. “And I— well, I wanted to know.”

“You have every right to know.” Derek’s voice is reverent, but so bittersweet. “It gets better, babe. I promise you. It gets better.”

Will chuckles. “I won’t live to see it,” he replies.

“Will,” Derek says. “You don’t know that.”

“Well, I won’t be  _ young _ when it happens,” he adds. “But there are people who will be. People like you. And I’m glad for that. I’m glad for all of you.”

“You’re included, too,” Derek reminds him, gently. “When you’re born doesn’t define whether you belong to that group. You’re part of us.” He pauses. “We’re not so different, babe.”

“I know we aren’t.” Will sighs at the sky. “But I just… I wanted to know if—”

He doesn’t know  _ if _ what. But Derek finishes for him. “If there’s a place for us.”

“Yes.”

Derek kisses his temple. “I promise you,” he whispers, “that one day, there will be.”

_ I love you,  _ Will thinks, and doesn’t say it. He feels moments from tears, for some reason. Maybe he just needed to hear it out loud— that it gets better. Maybe not for him. But for someone like him. Someday.

“You and me, Will,” Derek whispers.

Will’s echo comes naturally by now. “You and me.”

_ I love you _ .

Even if the thought is all his own, for now, it’s comforting.

He sighs and settles in, and they stay there, under the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! I'm moving quickly in my write-ahead journey toward the end of this story. Thank you very much, as always, for reading, and everybody please take care of yourselves. <3


	32. the loudest sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presented without comment. (One could argue that this, in fact, is a comment, which is valid. But anyway.) Chapter title from "Poetry" by Wrabel, which I will advocate for being a nurseydex song until the end of time.  
> (NSFW ahead!)  
> **Edit 10 minutes after I posted the chapter: I feel the need to note that there is a non-explicit sex scene in this chapter, and I should be upfront with all of you. I'm asexual, and though smut doesn't at all make me uncomfortable, I do have a bit of difficulty writing it. I'm sorry if anything sounds a bit awkward in this chapter, for that reason!!! The point is the feelings, not the actual sex.**

_ July 31st, 1961 _

_ Day 115 In Good Haven _

Will has been working on something upstairs.

Derek has no idea what he’s doing, exactly. He just knows that there’s something going on. And he knows this because for the past few days, during most idle hours, he’s been locking himself in his pa’s old study and denying entry to Derek.

_ You can’t come in here _ , he’ll call, from behind the closed door.  _ Go downstairs and read or something _ .

Which, like. Derek can’t say no to chilling and reading. But he’s still curious about what’s going on in there.

Like a good and dutiful live-in lover, he steps out of his way and lets him work… until Will seems to decide that he’s ready to clue him in. It happens on a Monday afternoon, when Will has been bustling around in there after his morning shift at Annie’s, waving to Derek on his way back and forth. Derek has stationed himself out on the porch, which, lately, in the sunny heat, has been the best place to be provided he stays hydrated and does proper skincare at night. Unfortunately, he has long since run out of his favorite skincare products. But fortunately, Will makes runs to the drugstore and gets him the next best thing. So you win some and you lose some.

Anyway. Will shows up in the doorway, with his sleeves rolled up and his tool belt on, like the hardworking hunk he is—  _ damn _ , Derek is gay— and nods to him. “I have something to show you.”

Derek bites back his instinctive first response, which, like, sue him, Will is sexy, and sits up on the porch swing, dog-earing the page in his latest 1930s mystery novel. (Ghost of William Poindexter Sr., please spare his soul for dog-earing his books.) “Does it involve your covert operation in the upstairs study?”

Will leans against the doorframe. “It might,” he replies. “But you should come and see for yourself.”

There’s something in his eyes— not  _ mischief _ , exactly, but he kind of looks like the parent in every Christmas movie ever who says they’re not getting their kid the sort of unrealistic gift they asked for and then at the last second they pull it out from some obscure crevice under the tree. And the kid goes wild. And it’s a wholesome family Christmas miracle.

Anyway. Will looks like that. Derek stands, leaving his book on the porch swing, and walks to the front door. “Will you lead the way?”

“Of course.” Will takes his hand, which he doesn’t have to do— but here, in the house, where it’s just the two of them, Will has seldom missed an opportunity to touch him idly. He leads him across the kitchen. All the windows are open, and the back door is cracked, too. Derek is vaguely wary of one of the hens finding her way in through that back door and occupying the kitchen and starting an uprising.  _ Stop stealing my fucking eggs, you human captors!!!!! _

He may live on the farm now, but he  _ still _ doesn’t trust those feathery fucks. And they  _ love _ Will, and he’s taking some of Will’s attention, so come to think of it, the feeling is probably mutual.

But at least right now, there’s no sign of any chicken invasion. He follows Will to the stairs and lets him lead him up them, until they reach the study door, which is conveniently closed.

“Oh, I know,” Derek chirps, as Will rests his hand on the doorknob. “You turned this into a room for me because you’re tired of me sharing your bed.”

Will laughs and shakes his head; there’s a tinge of blush in his cheeks. He’s being ceremonious, but really cute about it, like he worked really hard on whatever’s behind that door, and he’s excited for Derek to see the fruits of his labor. “Not exactly,” he replies. “It’s not much. It’s just…”

Will pushes open the door, and Derek peers inside, then proceeds to nearly swoon clean off his feet as he takes in the sight.

“A place for you to work,” Will finishes, and that is a  _ severe _ underplaying.

Will has turned the study into something of a  _ studio _ . The desk and bookshelf that were in here before are still here, although he’s shifted each of their positions slightly, but there are several small, new additions to the space as well— like an easel, by the window, just a simple wooden thing that, wait, is probably hand-built, now that he thinks about all the suspicious activity??? And there’s a stool by it, too; it looks like the lighting there would be perfect to paint in. Derek has no idea how he took his sketchbooks and supplies right out from under his nose, but that must have been the finishing touch on the small project; they sit in a neat stack on top of the desk next to the typewriter. There’s even a fresh shelf built against the wall opposite the desk, empty save two bookends that Will must have found somewhere else in the house.

It’s…  _ magical _ . And so, so thoughtful. For a second, taking it in, he’s at a loss for words.

“I know it’s small,” Will says, breaking through Derek’s awed silence, “and I haven’t been able to get too many supplies yet, but I thought, ‘slong as you’re here, you should have a place to work just the same as I have the barn— and it can’t be too comfortable to sit and write in the kitchen all the time, I imagine— so it may not be much, but—”

Derek cuts him off with a kiss, throwing his arms around his neck and pressing him to the wall like a damsel who just got saved in a bad, sexist movie. Will stumbles a little, which is funny and uncharacteristic, because  _ he’s _ supposed to be the one who can’t stay on his own two feet— but he kisses him back with just as much energy. When they come up for air, Derek looks him in the eye and tells him, “Babe, this is incredible.”

Will’s face lights up. His ears are bright red, and his smile is eager. “You like it?”

“I  _ love _ it.” It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has done for him in  _ such _ a long time, maybe ever. He looks around the space and laughs. “I love it, Will. I love—”

_ Oop.  _ He catches himself, kissing Will again to distract him from  _ that _ particular unfinished sentence. Now is still probably not the time, or at least it doesn’t feel it, as much as Derek would love to say it right now. If Will notices the fact that he doesn’t finish that thought, he doesn’t say anything about it. “It’s perfect,” he says instead, when they pause a second time. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“Well, I just…” Will pauses, biting at the corner of his lip a little, and Derek  _ knows _ this is a concentration thing, but still thirsts over it internally as he watches. “I thought you oughta have a quiet place to work. I know it’s a little cramped in here, and I’m sorry for that, but—”

“Will, there is  _ nothing _ cramped about this.” While it’s true objectively that the room is a small one, he’s literally only one person, and he’d paint in a broom closet if it meant he could have a studio. He doesn’t even have something like this in his  _ apartment _ . “I’m so— babe, it’s perfect.” Will laughs as he kisses him again. “I don’t even know how to thank you enough.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Will replies. “It seemed like a good thing to do.”

Derek laughs into his shoulder, wrapping him in a hug. “You sound like you’re getting interviewed on the news for saving a cat from a tree.”

“That’s a  _ very _ specific situation.”

“You’re a noble citizen.”

Will laughs back at him, tangling a hand in his hair, and kisses his cheek. “I’m glad you like it, Der.”

And Derek thinks,  _ I love you _ .

But he doesn’t say it. Yet.

*

_ August 5th, 1961 _

_ Day 120 In Good Haven _

“You know,” Derek tells him, that weekend, while they’re sitting together on the edge of the porch. “I’ve been thinking.”

“You’ve been thinking,” Will echoes, from next to him on the top of the front steps. It’s golden hour, and everything in the yard is so green— the gardens are flourishing, vegetables and flowers alike, and there’s a conglomerate of hens pecking at nothing on a patch of dirt next to the barn’s main entrance. The scene is idyllic, summer pastoral. He could paint it, maybe. All week, during his free time, he’s been in his studio making plans for what he’s going to do once he goes to pick up paint supplies next week. Today, his day off from the project at Annie’s, he slept the morning away, wrote half the afternoon, and spent most of the rest of it coaxing Will to come and relax with him on the porch.

Now, he’s got his wish. They sit admiring the yard from the porch like an old, married couple. “I’ve been thinking,” he affirms, looking sideways to him.

Bathed in honey-toned light, near the same color of his eyes, Will is a vision to be admired. His cheeks are sunburned, and he’s wearing a regular t-shirt for once in his life ( _ too warm for a button-down _ , he said this morning, getting dressed while Derek sleepily admired the view from bed). He has Derek’s green hat on, backwards, and a tuft of ginger hair curls just slightly at the end as it sticks out from under it.

“That’s a first,” Will remarks, and Derek clutches at his own chest.

“ _ Ouch _ , babe.” He doubles over for dramatic effect. “You’re roasting me.”

Will knocks his knee against his. “It was right there.”

Derek scoffs and pulls his pencil out of where he stuck it behind his ear. He picks up his notebook, open and resting next to his thigh, and writes another line at the bottom of his latest poem. His creative motivation has been taking off these past couple of weeks, fresh and anew. With no agent to hand his ideas over to.

“What were you thinking?” Will asks, his voice less chirp now, and more genuine interest.

He finishes writing down his thought, then puts the pencil in the page to keep his place, setting down the notebook again. “If I’m really stuck here,” he says, looking to Will again. “I mean… if I’m having to make longer-term plans.”

It’s a thought that would have terrified him earlier in this whole endeavor. But the longer he stays, the more stuck he feels. He remembers what Johnson, the dishwasher or possible cryptid from Annie’s, said when he asked if he knew how he’d get home.  _ Not right now _ .

With the time fuckery that happened at that gas station, plus the knowledge that driving off by himself doesn’t give him any luck, he has no idea where to go from here. It’s forced him to think a lot. About what happens if he can’t change this. If he’s  _ really _ stuck here.

Will stays quiet, like he’s waiting for him to continue. “I was thinking I’d try to write another book,” he tells him. “Maybe prose, this time. Fiction.”

“Oh?” Will replies. His expression is mostly neutral. “What would it be about?”

Derek grins a little. “Oh, I dunno,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can muster. “Maybe a sci-fi romance with heavily implied homoerotic subtext about a guy from New York who accidentally time travels his way to 1960s Maine.”

Will shoves him sideways, and Derek sways in his seat, laughing as Will chuckles. “Der.”

“No, but I am serious,” he adds. “Not about that specific plot. But about writing a book.”

“Well.” Will pauses for a second, looking out over the lawn. There’s not a dead patch of grass in sight. Will is a meticulous landscaper. When he looks back at him, he remarks, “I think you’re perfectly capable of it.”

“I could type it,” he says. “On the typewriter. And make it into a manuscript, and maybe…” He shrugs. “Try to get it published. I dunno. I figure there’s gotta be, like,  _ something _ useful I can contribute to society here, right?”

“Of course there is.”

“There are plenty of artists now.” He pauses. “Artists like me. And if time isn’t going to let me go home, I figure… why not try to make some kind of, like, a  _ social _ impact, y’know? If my stay here is that prolonged, why not try to speak up for what I believe in?”

Will reaches to rub his knee. “I think that’s very admirable.”

“I just.” He sighs and looks down at his shoes for a second. They’re the blue high-tops he wore here, so many time-warped months ago, and they’re starting to get worn-down. “I guess I’ve started planning for the longer term.”

Will is quiet for a second, looking into the distance again. Then he says, without making eye contact, “But… Derek… what about what happened at the gas station?”

Derek’s stomach turns. The memory is so clouded with anxiety that he prefers to block it out entirely. “I feel like if that was when I was supposed to go home, time… wouldn’t have let you find me.”

“That’s… probably true.” Will squints in the mellowed sunlight; it looks so fucking  _ beautiful _ on him. Derek needs to breathe. “I just…” He looks over at him, gentle but wary. “I’d hate to be keeping you here. If there were a way for you to get home.”

“You’re not keeping me, Will.” Derek reaches to lace his fingers in his, and he squeezes tight when he gets a hold of it. “This is safe for me right now.  _ You’re _ safe. You make me feel like I’m home.”

Will stutters a little at this, and Derek realizes he’s just said something really cheesy, but, like, who actually cares.

“It’s…” He pauses. They’ve been living together for several weeks, and courting for months before that, but they haven’t talked about  _ them _ in such concrete terms in what feels like awhile. “What we have… what we’re doing, it’s… I haven’t felt this way in a long time,” he tells him. “Maybe ever, actually. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

Will looks hesitant, or maybe just uncertain. “Is that a good thing?”

“Of course it’s a good thing.”

“Okay.” Will nods, and he can tell he relaxes a little. “Well, I…” There’s something like urgency, all of a sudden, in his voice. He reaches his other hand to place it on top of the one he’s already using to hold his, and he looks into his eyes, like this is very serious. “I like having you here.”

“I like  _ being _ here,” he replies, naturally, without hesitation. “With you. And as long as I’m stuck…”

Will nods. “You and me,” he says, like it’s the answer to a question Derek isn’t really asking directly.

Still, he repeats it, because it’s what they do. “You and me.”

With another squeeze to his hand, he lets go of it to reach for his notebook again. He flips to a fresh page and dates the top of it— he’s grown so accustomed to writing  _ 1961 _ that, if time ever lets him get home, he’ll have to be really careful.

Will leans over to him, and he feels his cheek press against his shoulder. “What are you writing?”

“Don’t know yet.”

_ when i look at you in low daylight _

_ i think the same of you and the sun— _

_ don’t slip away _

“Is it the next literary masterpiece of our generation?” Will hums, still resting on his shoulder.

“Yes.”

_ in sunlight, you’re on fire _

_ but you don’t burn, _

_ or at least _

_ not the way i once thought you did _

“Of course,” Will says. “I should’ve known.”

“You really should’ve.”

_ you’re a vision in gold _

“Are you writing about me to suck up to me?”

“Are  _ you _ reading over my shoulder to be a pain in the ass?”

Will snorts. “You’re not exactly hiding it.”

Derek skips a few lines.

_ william poindexter is a butthead _

“Hey!”

_ his ears are so big because it’s where he stores all his pent up rage _

“This is bad poetry.”

“What are you talking about? It’s the next literary masterpiece of our generation.”

_ he has freckles all over his stomach _

“ _ Derek _ .”

_ and they are fun to kiss _

“You’re twelve years old.”

_ but the best part is _

_ he’s a grouchy farmer bitch _

“Wow.”

_ to everyone _

_ but me! :) _

“Oh, I see.” When Derek finally looks up, Will is studying him with arched eyebrows, and a little flush in his ears. “You make fun of me for the whole poem and then you end it like that so you can pretend you weren’t just making fun of me.”

Derek closes the journal with a little slapping noise of the pages. “That’s the first poem in my next collection, actually,” he tells him. “It’s entitled  _ Poems For My Lover, The Grouchy Farmer Bitch _ .”

“You know what?” Will looks like he’s trying not to laugh, which is one of the best looks on him. “I take back what I said about liking you being here. Maybe you oughta go move back in with Eric.”

“Good.” He puts his notebook down and folds his arms. “Eric wouldn’t treat me like this. He’d make me pies. How come you never make me pies?”

“Because I only make pies for people who don’t make fun of me in poems.”

“ _ Ohhhh.  _ Chill. I see how it is.”

“ _ And _ for people who don’t hog the bed.”

He lets out a dramatic gasp. “I do  _ not _ hog the bed!”

“Are you sure?” Will asks. “You try being me. I wake up about to fall off the mattress every morning.”

“Well, maybe you just aren’t getting cozy enough.” Derek tickles his elbow, and Will yelps, finally laughing. The sweet sound fills the golden air, and Derek could just listen to that for hours.

“You are an  _ inconsiderate _ bed partner,” Will remarks.

“Oh, yeah?” he taunts. “Were all your former lovers better?”

He snorts, and then laughs again. “In fact, yes. As you know, I’ve had dozens of live-in partners. Hundreds, in fact. I’m a regular Kenny Parson.”

“ _ Oof _ , babe,” Derek laughs. “Roasting him when he’s not even here to defend himself. I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Are you kidding?” he replies. “He’d be  _ proud _ . He’d say, you’re damn right I did that.” Will shakes his head, sighing a little, like a tired dad who needs a beer, and remarks, “His life and his choices, but gee  _ whiz _ , sometimes I worry about his judgement.”

“Gee whiz,” Derek echoes, which, for the record, is one of his favorite things to hear Will say. And then, because he is so caught up in chuckling about it and just staring at him in the afternoon light and apparently not thinking at all before he speaks, he says, “God, I love you.”

Will sobers, his eyes widening, and Derek replays his own words in his head.

His soul literally flies out of his body.

Will says nothing, for a silence that’s too long. “Fuck,” Derek says, as the anxiety kicks into overdrive. “I— Will, I’m so sorry. That just came out, and I didn’t— well, no, I  _ meant _ it, but—”  _ Shit, fuck _ , he’s really gone and done it now, hasn’t he? “I’m sorry.  _ Jesus _ . That wasn’t— I really didn’t mean to drop that on you like that. I—”

“No,” Will says, which, at least he’s finally speaking again, and then he takes a long breath and reaches for both of his hands. “I,” he says, very slowly. “Derek, I—”  _ Oh my God.  _ He’s about to  _ actually _ throw him out, isn’t he?  _ Derek, that was weird and abrupt and also way too fast, and— _

“I love you, too.”

Oh.

_ Oh. _

Derek stares at him, and for a useless, gay moment, they’re both completely quiet. Will takes another deep breath, and then breaks the silence to add, “I don’t think I ever stood a chance.”

God,  _ fuck _ , that’s really sweet, actually. They’re caught in this awkward half-handhold, and Derek makes it a full one, turning to face him a little more. “But even with—?” He looks around, like that’ll explain what he means. “With all of this? With the way I got here?” He pauses, and at least his brain is no longer threatening to explode of that initial panic, but it still all feels a little tentative. “You’re okay with saying that?”

“Derek,” Will says. “What’s the use of holding something back if it’s the truth?”

Writer extraordinaire, he has no words for that.

“I love you,” Will repeats, and it sounds a little reverent now; he looks so perfect in the light of the afternoon. “And if you feel the same, I don’t see any reason why we should keep ourselves from saying what we mean.”

“I do,” he replies, leaning into him, holding his hands tight. “I do, Will.” He takes a breath, and the weight of holding it in seems to lift off his shoulders. If he’s going to say it, then say it, he will. He’s gone head over heels for this man. “Of course I love you.”

Will bridges the gap between them, finally, and the world goes quiet when he kisses him. It’s a soft, gentle thing— or at least it starts out that way, as Will cups his face in one calloused hand. Derek sighs a little, against his mouth. He loves him.  _ God _ . He really does.

“I didn’t, uh,” he starts, between kisses. “I didn’t know if I should say it. Because of, well.  _ Me _ . I thought you’d get scared away, if I told you—”

“Derek.” Will’s voice is as gentle as the kiss was. “I would love you no matter where or when you came from.”

And  _ God _ , that’s all he needs to hear. Derek wraps him up, and it’s a little deeper when they kiss again. Will’s touch is soft, and his face is warm. There’s nothing theatrical about this love confession, no long speech, no flourish. There doesn’t need to be. It’s a simple truth, and with Will, simplicity is all he needs. How could he imagine it any other way?

He feels they’re enveloped in this golden light, and that it’ll keep them warm, keep them safe, in this bubble of safety that Will calls home. Falling in love, here and now, the way they are, may not be what’s considered right in the public eye— but Derek has never been one to deny himself of a feeling because it isn’t socially acceptable. He loves Will, and let them love. Try as it may, the world can’t change that. Not even in 1961.

“Derek,” Will whispers, between kisses. “While we’re sharing?”

“Mm?” He opens his eyes; Will’s lips have left him feeling vaguely drunk. “What’s up, babe?”

Will hesitates, for a moment. His fingers play around Derek’s hip bone under his shirt, and his forehead rests comfortably, right up against his. Derek waits for his words to come, and when they do, he’s still speaking slowly. “I… there’s something I think I want.”

“Okay.” He  _ won’t _ get too excited, but he does pull him closer by the waist, feathering a kiss to his cheek. “Do you want to tell me what it is?”

“Well.” Will nods, then takes a deep breath. His face is very red, all of a sudden. “Yes. And actually, I  _ know  _ I want it. It’s just…”

He trails off, and Derek pinches gently at his chin. Will’s sudden fluster makes him think he knows where this is going. “Hard to say?” he asks, and Will nods again. He’s hooked his fingers at the hem of Derek’s shirt, unmoving. “It’s okay, babe,” Derek assures him, kissing his other cheek now. “You can take your time. But I want you to tell me. Whatever it is.” He pauses to trace a little trail in freckles across his jawline.

“I love you,” he reminds him.

“I love you, too.” Will seems to shudder a little, in his arms, but still says nothing but that for a moment. Then he leans forward, like he’s going to whisper in his ear, and his breath is warm on Derek’s neck when he exhales. Now it’s Derek’s turn to shiver.

“Derek,” Will says, slowly. “I want you to make love to me.”

Derek feels a  _ zing _ in his body, like a lightning strike, and Will’s words send his fantasies tumbling into his mind. He pulls back, so he can look right in his eyes. The intensity there in his expression, mixed with determination, like it’s a task Will has firmly decided on fulfilling— it’s so much, and Derek  _ wants _ him. Desperately. He’s wanted him like this for longer than he can say, but he’s never been  _ ready _ for it until now. Now, when Will is asking. Now, when they’re both on the same page.

“Wait, like.” He squeezes him around the waist. “Right now?”

Will’s ears are turning red. “If, ah, if it’s not a good time—”

“Oh—  _ no _ , babe, no. Of course it’s a good time.” He tries to sound chill about it, like he’s not about to get to do something he’s been fantasizing about far more than he would have previously admitted. “You want this,” he says. “You’re sure?”

Will nods, in lieu of verbalizing a response, and kisses him again. It’s full of heat, all of a sudden, and promise for more. When they let go, Will finally does say, “Yes. I’m sure.” He pauses, for just a second, and then adds, “But not here. Upstairs. In the bedroom.”

Derek nods. His heart is thumping, and his mind is already halfway there. “Lead the way.”

*

_ you see me _

_ in a new way, _

_ a way no one has _

_ and the truth, _

_ hidden beneath these layers of myself, _

_ is that if you’re safe, _

_ if you’re home, _

_ i could do this with you _

_ for as long as you’ll have me _

*

In his room, the first thing Will does is walk to his nightstand, going for a picture frame next to the lamp. It’s an old photo, one Derek has studied several times, just a simple black-and-white shot (well, everything here is a black-and-white shot, but still), of Will’s parents. They look young, probably right around the age he and Will are right now. Will isn’t in the photo, but he’s told Derek before that he was already born when it was taken. His pa is in uniform.

Now, Will takes the frame, gently pulls in its stand, and places it face-down. Derek watches as he does the same for a second photo, this one of him  _ with _ his parents, on the dresser. When he’s done, Derek chuckles a little, raising an eyebrow at him. It’s kind of endearing.

“Look,” Will tells him, turning back to face him. “My parents… they were okay with me. Being the way I am. Or at least I really do believe they would’ve been.” He pauses, then steps forward and a little closer to him. His ears are still red. “But if my ma knew we weren’t married…”

Derek laughs and pulls him in by both hands. “It would be a scandal?”

“Well,  _ Der _ ,” he replies, as Derek slips out of his high tops (why waste time on that later?), “it’s not exactly very socially acceptable to bed  _ anyone _ you aren’t married to.”

“Aw, Dexy.” He shakes his leg to get his shoe off. “The times, they’re a-changing.”

And he  _ wants _ this to be smooth; he wants to kick his sneakers aside and sweep Will up in his arms and make the start of this very romantic. But because he is apparently allergic to fine motor skills, his shoe gives him trouble, and he stumbles, tripping over the one he successfully removed in the process of getting off the second one. “ _ Derek _ !” Will laughs, swooping in and coming to the rescue. He catches him gently, before Derek can topple over his own two feet, and all he can do is grin up at him, batting his eyelashes for extra effect.

“Wow,” he hums. “You’re my hero.”

“Shut up,” Will says, with no bite in it at all. He leans in to kiss him, and it’s a searching thing; they move together as Will gets his own shoes off and they make it to the edge of the bed. Derek seats himself under him and pulls him into his lap— which is sort of a feat, because they’re literally the exact same size, but once Will is there, it’s easy to get comfortable.

Derek kisses him, slowly, and slides his hands under the bottom of his cotton shirt. “Will,” he tells him, “my love, let’s stay on the same page, okay?”

Will’s eyes are closed; he takes a long breath in. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m going to keep asking you if things are okay.” He pauses, resting both hands on Will’s stomach under his shirt. He’s muscular and warm. “We’ll do this slowly, and I’ll keep checking in. I want this to be perfect for you. Which means I need to make sure everything I’m doing is okay by you. Does that make sense?”

Will nods, with eyes still shut. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He takes hold of the hem of his shirt, sliding it upwards a little, and asks, “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Will repeats, so he takes it all the way off. His own shirt doesn’t last much longer, and once they’re both gone, they’re close and skin to skin, and Derek marvels at the expanse of freckles on him. He’s seen them before, sure; he falls asleep next to them nightly now. But right now, in this golden-hour glow, with the knowledge of what they’re about to do— this, here and now, is different. Much different.

He kisses his shoulder, then his collarbone, and the base of his neck. Will winds his limbering arms around his waist, and lets off a sigh that sounds shaky. Derek peeks up at him. “Hey,” he murmurs, all ease. “This okay, babe?”

“Yes,” Will whispers. He sort of hugs him, pressing his face into Derek’s shoulder. “I’ve just…” he says. “Never done this before.”

“I know that, baby.” Derek traces gently at the hairline on the back of his neck. “We’ll go really slowly, alright? I’ll show you everything.”

Will nods. Derek feels him press his lips, dryly, to his neck, and it’s a simple, tiny gesture, but it sends the want coursing through him again. “Alright,” Will says, and he doesn’t sound  _ hesitant _ , but he does sound a little nervous. “I— yes. Okay.”

“It’s okay, Will.” He holds him close, this mass of freckly skin against his own, and tells him, “I’ll take good care of you.”

Will whimpers a little when he nods again, and if  _ that _ isn’t the best sound Derek has ever heard.

_ I want you to make love to me _ , he said on the porch.

And make love, he will.

*

_ how is it _

_ that i’ve said those three words _

_ time and again _

_ to lovers old and new _

_ but when you tell me you love me, _

_ it feels like the first time anyone, _

_ anywhere, _

_ has said those words to another _

*

Will has never done this before.

He knows that Derek knows this. And he’s not ashamed. But he still feels flushed, and a little shaky, as Derek lays him down on the mattress. They’ve gotten down to their underwear, which, despite the fooling around, is as far as they’ve ever both been at the same time.

Derek presses him ever-so-gently into the sheets, propping himself over him so the light frames him like a halo or a golden lining. Will forgets how to think, at the sight of him like this, all warm, brown skin and muscle and tattoo ink.

“Still good, babe?” Derek murmurs, leaning over him, one leg on either side of his waist.

And Will nods. “Good,” he affirms. Derek kisses him again, and Will holds him by the waist.

Will isn’t— he’s not  _ nervous _ . Or at least he’s not nervous in the sense that it makes him not want to go through with it, because by  _ God _ , he does. But he just. He’s never done this before.

“Before we continue,” Derek says, after a few peppered kisses to his cheeks, “We should get the right stuff.” He pauses a moment, his eyes searching Will like he’s curious, and asks, “Do you… have a condom here?”

“A—” Will  _ knows _ that he’s the one who  _ asked _ him to do this, and that this kind of situation necessarily involves protection. But the word  _ condom _ brings heat to his face anyway. He would hate to know how much he’s blushing. He hopes it’s not a turn-off. “I… don’t, Derek. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, babe.” Derek squeezes his hand on the pillow. “I’m tested, and I know I’m clean. And since you’ve never been with anybody… we should be okay.”

“Tested?” Will pauses. He hates that he has no idea how most of this works. “For diseases?”

“Yeah, you never know,” Derek replies. “So it’s good to be safe.” He traces along Will’s wrist with that same hand, then adds, “But it’s been a long time since I was with anybody, and I’ve been tested since then.”

“Oh.” He nods a little. It makes him just a little self-conscious, to remember that Derek has been with other people, while this is all new for him. He doesn’t want to be disappointing. And yet he  _ wants _ him, with everything in him, he wants him. Wants this. “Okay.”

“But we  _ will _ need Vaseline,” Derek adds. “You have that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he says. “I do. It’s, uh…” He sighs a little, glancing toward the bathroom door. “It’s in my medicine cabinet.” The thought of one of them getting up feels like an interruption, but Derek rolls off of him and stands off the bed anyway.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells him, and Will watches him go. He’s so tall, so strong, and so  _ beautiful _ — like some kind of fine marble statue, he doesn’t seem real. Will’s heart, he realizes, is beating much more quickly than it is normally. And as he lays there in bed for the brief moment Derek is in the bathroom, he realizes how much of himself is on display— and how much more will be soon, once they strip down completely, because that’s what’s next, isn’t it?

He’s just freckle and red hair and sunburn. He still doesn’t understand how Derek can want him, when he looks like  _ that _ , and Will… looks like this.

He isn’t nervous, but—  _ gee _ .

Derek re-emerges with a jar, holding it up with this smug little grin on his face. “Got it,” he says, then hops onto the mattress again, depositing it on the nightstand next to them. He anchors himself over him again, and he tugs at the waistband of his own boxers. “Is it…” He pauses. “Okay if I take these off?”

And Will may not know much about how this will work, but he  _ does _ know one thing— “I want to do that.”

“ _ Oh _ .” Derek’s grin widens. There’s something like a twinkle in his eyes. They’re so pretty, so green. “Be my guest, then.”

*

_ they say, _

_ your body is a temple _

_ but if that’s true _

_ your body is a cut above _

_ i look at you and i see palaces, _

_ ancient cities _

_ the beauty of something buried deep in history _

_ and every inch of you is regal _

_ a sight to behold, _

_ for all time _

*

There are freckles  _ everywhere _ .

Derek leans back a little to survey Will’s body—  _ all  _ of him, all at once, the parts he knows well and the parts he’s never gotten a chance to look closely at. His skin is flush, and they cluster on him like stars, and Derek thinks he could dedicate the entire next several hours to just kissing and touching every single one of them, before even doing any sexy stuff at all.

But. Then again. The sight between Will’s legs is equally as enticing.

Oh, sure, he’s  _ seen _ him. He’s touched him, and he’s even swallowed him— three separate times, by now— but they haven’t ever seen each other fully  _ naked _ before, the way they are now. Will’s body is, in this moment, the most attractive thing he’s ever laid eyes on. He’s well-built, ruddy, and fiery from head to toe.

“Jesus, babe,” he whispers, gracing his fingers on a cluster of freckles next to Will’s hipbone. “You’re  _ gorgeous _ .”

And it sounds so cliched, but God, does he mean it. Will smiles a little, and it’s a bashful thing, which is just so fucking  _ cute _ , at its core, so honest and intimate. He is wholly conscious, looking over his body like this, that he’s the first person to ever see Will in this state.

It feels… sacred.

“You’re one to talk,” he replies, and even his ears are bright red by now.

Derek leans close to kiss him, and Will is eager as he kisses back, pressing his palm up against his ribcage and tracing the script of his tattoo. It’s a simple touch, but it sends want coursing through his body in all the right ways. His lips are a little chapped, chewed at from his concentrated tic, but Derek can fix that. He bites down gently on his bottom lip, and Will groans, and  _ that _ is quite the sound.

“I just,” Derek whispers, against his mouth, “I want to touch you. All over.”

“ _ Please _ ,” Will says, and nothing else. His breath seems to catch on that one word alone.

Derek is hard.

But even given that, he doesn’t want to rush this. “Mm.” He falls into another kiss, and their bodies slot and press together in all the right ways. He’ll have to get him ready, to work him up so it won’t hurt— but right now, all he can think to do is kiss him and look at his skin. He runs his hands all over him, and Will shudders under his touch.

“I love you,” he tells him, lips against his collarbone. He wants to memorize every single freckle on him, to write lines on his skin with his mouth.

“I love you, too,” Will says, all breath.

And as much as he  _ wants _ right now, he has to check in. “You’re okay that I’m doing this slow?”

Will’s exhale is sharp, and shivery, but he nods several times. “Very okay,” he replies. “I— it’s perfect, Der. Don’t stop.”

“Oh, babe.” He kisses at his neck again. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

*

_ you’re spring green _

_ never touched _

_ and i’ve never wanted more _

*

Derek preps him first, and he takes his slow, sweet time. Will has felt this— they’ve done it once, Derek coaxing him through it, with gentle fingers and kisses to distract him from that slightly awkward newness— but it’s different now; it’s better now, because it’s leading them to something else.

When they’re finally ready, and Derek slips into him, he lets off a little involuntary cry, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s a lot— and he knew it would be— and Derek is above him, steady, holding onto him and whispering something gently in his ear, but it takes him a moment to even start to register his words.

“Talk to me, Will,” he’s saying. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” he breathes, because it’s all he can get out, and his hips jump without him meaning it. Derek moves a little deeper into him, and he— oh,  _ God _ , he can’t think straight, can’t even find words aside from the involuntary noises he’s making.

He’s never been touched like this, never  _ seen _ like this, and Derek is the only person in the world he’s ever wanted like this, and now that he’s started he’s not sure he wants to stop.

“ _ Oh _ ,” he cries, as he feels Derek touch something sensitive inside of him. “I— that’s good; that’s—” But he’s still choking on his breath a little, and he nods instead of completing his sentence.

He’s coming apart, and they’ve barely started. He holds tight to Derek above him, burying his face in his neck.

“Everything feel okay?” Derek whispers.

“Yes,” he manages. “F-Feels perfect.”

“Okay,” Derek says, with a nod. He pulls up a little to meet his eyes, and his gaze is desire-charged, something shining in those green eyes. The light still gives him a glow, and naked on top of him like this, he is the sole most beautiful thing Will has ever seen. “I’m going to move in a second,” he tells him, smoothing carefully at Will’s hair on his forehead. “Nice and slow, okay?”

“Nice and slow,” Will echoes, because coming up with his own words feels borderline out of the question. His pulse is pounding, and there’s something hot swimming in his abdomen, and when he clamps around Derek it threatens to finish him off before they’ve even begun.

Derek kisses him, so slowly, and then presses his forehead against his. He’s smiling; he looks a little exhilarated. “You and me,” he says.

Will tries a smile; he knows it might look odd, because of how much he feels he’s coming apart in his arms. “You and me,” he replies, and means it.

Then Derek makes love to him, and he loses all ability to think straight.

*

_ touch me, _

_ i’ll touch you _

_ and it’s all we need _

_ we’ll just stay here _

*

Derek is close.

He’s not sure how long it’s been. He’s on a high, and he doesn’t want to come down— but he’s close. Beneath him, Will is flushed and noisy, holding him close as he moves with him, and it’s. It’s like nothing he’s ever done. Will is tight, and he’s hooked his legs around his waist at some point, and Derek is very aware that every move he makes symbolizes a first for Will, and it’s just.

He has  _ never _ made love quite like this before.

He mumbles encouragement mixed with his own involuntary sounds, close to his neck and sometimes biting at his earlobe, or kissing him between his words. It’s a lot of  _ fuck _ and  _ so good, Will _ and  _ just like that, babe _ , and it’s all either of them can say, through the cloud of want, until something changes.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Will says, hot breath into his shoulder, like he’s realizing something. “Oh— I— Derek, I’m—”

He kisses him, a little more briefly than the way he’s been doing it this whole time, and gives him room to speak. “You alright, babe?”

“I think I’m.” Will takes a sharp breath in, then nods, with his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m going to—”

“Mm.” It isn’t the first time Derek has coaxed him through finishing, but this time feels distinctly, blissfully different. He gives him another kiss before he tells him, “Whenever you’re ready, you go ahead for me, okay, Will?”

“Oh,  _ God _ ,” Will borderline whimpers, his grip tightening around him, and Derek feels his nails dig into his back, which just speeds up his own process, and he’s just.  _ Fuck _ , he’s so close— he’s right on the edge, and he’s not sure how much longer he’ll last.

“C’mon, babe,” he eases him. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

And then he doesn’t need to wait longer, because then Will is clinging to him, and choking on his name as he releases, and it’s hot and sticky against both of their stomachs. Derek kisses him through it, so much as he can between Will’s gasping breath, and it’s beautiful, and it’s perfect, it’s so fucking perfect—

But he’s at his breaking point, and he has to finish, too. So he pulls out, and he does, and he makes a mess of both of them but they can clean that up later; it’s okay, because for now all he wants to do is just  _ hold _ him.

He wraps him in his arms. Will’s skin is sweaty; it tastes salty when he presses his lips to his shoulder. He’s also shaking, but his breathing seems to be returning to normal.

“I love you,” Will says, when he finds a voice, and they’ve been saying it the whole time, but it hits differently in the immediate aftermath of  _ this _ .

“I love you, too,” he replies, pulling up to line their faces up. Will has come apart and come back together in his arms, and he looks.  _ Beautiful _ .

Derek could stay here. Forever, he thinks.

*

_ i used to think _

_ you were from another world _

_ but i would love you _

_ in any world we lived in _

_ as long as i knew you _

_ and i never _

_ want to forget _

*

The light pours on them as they lay side-by-side.

Will’s body feels heavy. He drapes himself across Derek’s side, still hot all over, even after cleaning up the bed and themselves. The sheets curl around their bodies, still bare besides them, and he traces the dips and falls in the muscle on Derek’s chest.

For a moment there, he forgot how to think, and he’s still trying to get that ability back. Derek pressed into him from above was enough to shut all his senses off, everything except that want, and the love, too, but the love was there regardless, the driving force of the whole thing.

He has no idea how long they were at it. Twenty minutes, maybe. A bit longer. It felt slow and sweet and yet over too quickly all at once.

They don’t talk much, at first, when they lay back down. Will rests in the glow from outside, feels the warmth on his already-hot skin. Derek’s hand is around his waist, and his other one graces through his hair as he holds his head against his chest.

“Derek,” he whispers, and his voice is raw, but that’s alright; all the rest of him feels the same. “Can we stay here?”

“Of course we can, babe,” he replies. His thumb grazes under Will’s earlobe, and then he adds, “I have nowhere to be.”

Will chuckles a little. “Neither do I.”

Which, of course he doesn’t. It’s a Saturday evening. It’s just he isn’t sure he ever wants to leave his arms like this.

He’s not sure he has many words right now. And surprisingly enough, it doesn’t seem that Derek has so many, either. But what he can say, he will. Because he means it.

“Derek,” he says again, and looks up to meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

Derek smiles, and Will is so in love.

They don’t leave the afterglow for hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and shout at me in the comments if you feel so inclined. Thank you very much for reading!


	33. easy like sunday morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, small disclaimer? Last chapter was non-explicit smut. What is this chapter?.... More non-explicit smut. I'm sorry. The story just fell into place a certain way. If it makes you feel any better, this is pretty much the only time you'll see this stuff on-page the way it is here and in chapter 32. (That's not to say this kind of encounter won't take place again, just that I won't really write about it in detail).  
> Anyway. This is the only instance of back-to-back NSFW content, and I'm sorry in advance because this chapter is pretty much nothing BUT said content. Chapter 34 contains a lot of shit going down, though, so bear with me.

_ August 1952 _

Will wakes with a start, the remnants of a dream on his mind.

The sun is warm, and he’s facing out toward his window; dawn is breaking over the farm. His consciousness comes to him in waves— and recollections of what he dreamt of. It was hazy, and vague, but he knows what it was all the same.

He’s hot under the sheets, so he throws them off and presses his face into the pillow. He doesn’t have these dreams often, but when they come, they leave him reeling in guilt.

Sometimes, he isn’t sure who it is. But this time around, it was relatively clear. A boy from school, from the hockey team. One of his friends. He’s known him for years, and he’s never thought about him that way. To even entertain thoughts about him that way feels like a violation of privacy, yet he can’t control what goes on in his dreams.

He’s sweating, tense, flushing. He pulls the sheets back over himself, takes a deep breath, and tries to will the feeling away. These dreams, though not constant, have been coming to him more often over the past few months, since his falling out with Rosie after the spring dance. He’s getting older, and more aware of himself, and he knows it. But he can’t  _ stand _ to think that way, especially not so obviously, when all he’s ever tried to do is beat it down.

He should talk to Kenny about it, but he doesn’t. Kenny has always been more forward about dealing with his problems, and acting on these feelings is the one thing Will knows he  _ can’t _ do. That he’ll never do. Never in a million years.

He wipes his face off with his sheet, and cranes his neck up toward the cracked-open window in an attempt to cool down. It looks like a dewy morning out there; he’ll have chores waiting from home when he gets home, like always. He nearly forgets entirely what day of the week it is until there’s a gentle rap on his open door behind him.

He turns. It’s Ma, and she’s already dressed, in one of her good Sunday dresses. It might be his imagination, but he thinks whatever’s been making her sick has also been making her thinner. The dress looks bigger on her than it used to. He’s worried. But he won’t say so, because he doesn’t want to worry her, and she’s been carrying on life just the same, even with the way she’s feeling.

This worry, at least, distracts him momentarily from his lingering shame. He hopes he isn’t still flushing. What a thing to have to explain to your ma. He slept overheated, he decides. That’s what he’ll say, if she asks. “Good morning, Junior,” she says, and her voice is soft, a little raspy. It has been all the time, lately. “Time to get up for Mass.”

And he  _ knew _ , in the back of his mind, that today was Sunday. But the thought of sitting in Mass right now, hearing about God, what with what’s been going on in his head— it’s just— a lot.

“Thanks, Ma,” he replies. “I’ll be right downstairs.”

Ma smiles. She’s so unsuspecting that it hurts Will a little. She can never know. He can never act on it, and she can never know.

What he needs is a shower. A cold shower.

But he has no time for that. All that waits for him is church.

*

_ August 6th, 1961 _

_ Day 121 In Good Haven _

Sunday morning comes slowly, the way it’s supposed to, and Will wakes up wrapped in Derek and the sheets and nothing else.

It’s far from the first time they’ve woken up in this bed together, by now. But this morning is like doing it anew all over again. Will isn’t sure why, but, on second thought, maybe he does know. Derek has shared his bed for weeks, but they’ve never been together quite the way they were last night.

He can replay it in his head when he closes his eyes. The light pours warm on the both of them, and he holds Derek close to his chest, recalling all the new ways he touched him. The way he looked at him.

No one has touched him like that, seen him like that, in all twenty-five years of his life.

He could think of no one he’d rather have shared that with than Derek. How could it not be Derek?

He puts a hand gently through his hair; his curls are mussed, because he didn’t do much in the way of self-maintenance before they fell asleep last night. It’s a nice look on him, actually— this disheveled vulnerability, for Will’s eyes only. He could wake up next to him every day like this and marvel at it just the same each time.

Derek is beautiful, but he knew that. He’s known that for months.

And last night, he… well, he took something from him, something Will willingly gave; he caved to his want and gave Derek that long-buried part of himself. He thinks maybe he expected that something this morning would feel different— not necessarily something between them, but something about himself. Because isn’t making love for the first time supposed to be this monumental occasion, this milestone in adulthood? If it is, Will doesn’t feel it. And not because last night wasn’t special, because by  _ God _ , was it special. He just doesn’t feel like a different person this morning or anything like that.

The only thing he feels that might be different from usual— or at least from what is rapidly becoming his sense of usual, his normal— is that he doesn’t feel keen on getting up anytime soon.

But then again, when you wake up in a bed next to Derek, it’s really not difficult to lose your motivation to get up.

At least it’s Sunday.

Will closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, the sun has come up out the window, and dawn is giving way to more solid daylight. It’s hard at first to tell what has actually woken him up— he figures he slept for at least an hour more— but then he feels it again. Derek’s face is pressed into his neck, and he’s peppering kisses to his skin there. The brush of his stubble tickles, just slightly, but not enough for Will to mind in such a drowsy state.

He’s at ease. And for this morning, that’s enough.

He finds Derek’s hand, where it’s resting on his chest, and slips his fingers into his, with an interlaced grip. This is cause for Derek to lift his head; his hair is still a disaster, and his eyes catch the morning light like murky water shining in the sun. It’s the nicest sight Will has seen in a long time— but then again, every time he looks at him, he has that thought all over again.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Derek hums, in a raspy voice that sends Will’s head straight into the clouds.

Will presses a kiss to his forehead. When he finds his own voice, it, too, is soft. “Good morning.”

Derek shifts a little. His skin is warm in every place it presses to his, and he reaches up until he’s tracing at the bottom of Will’s jaw. For a moment, just laying there, they’re both quiet. Derek’s touch is a tender and welcome thing; he’d have it anywhere on him, after last night.

Last night. He lets off an easy sigh.

“Wait,” Derek says, after a moment. He rests his hand at his cheek, his thumb just under his earlobe, and asks, “Is that movie even out yet?”

Will squints at him for a second. “Uh… which movie?”

“Sleeping beauty.” Derek squints at him. “Y’know, like, Aurora…”

“ _ Oh _ .” Will almost laughs. “Yes. It came out… a year or two ago, I believe.”

“Oh. Good.” Derek’s eyes flutter shut, and he smiles contentedly. “You can understand my references.”

Now Will  _ does _ laugh. It’s more of a chuckle, actually, but it makes Derek’s smile widen anyway. “Yes,” he tells him. “I do.”

Derek opens his eyes again. They look like the ocean. Will wants— all at once, he wants the ocean. It hits him like running into a wall, and it’s the strangest feeling in the world. When was the last time he wanted the ocean?

But he doesn’t have time to be confused by that sudden urge for all that long, because then Derek is leaning forward, planting sleepy, gentle kisses all over his face. Will laughs again, but he pays him no mind. He even crawls on top of him, sort of, and straddles his hips, which is quite the sensation, given that they’re both still naked. Will can feel him, and he’s not sure if he should focus on that or on the way his lips feel all over his face.

“ _ Der _ ,” he says, squirming a little in an insincere protest. It makes him vaguely aware of an ache, a twinge in his hips. “Baby.”

“Mm.” Derek moves to his ear and kisses just above his eardrum, then fully nibbles at the lobe, and Will jumps, laughing louder.

“What was that for?” he asks.

Derek shrugs a little. “It’s fun,” he replies, then returns, kissing down his neck and then licking a little at the base of his throat. It makes him shudder, but he keeps on laughing, because it tickles, too.

“ _ Derek _ ,” he says, like he isn’t loving every second of this. “You are  _ gross _ .”

“Oh?” Derek nods, like this is just the reaction he wanted. “And what’re you gonna do about it?”

“Okay, that’s it,” Will laughs, and then he grabs him by the shoulders and throws him carefully to the side so he can roll the both of them over. His goal is to wind up on top of him, and get him back, but as he’s moving, the ache in his hips becomes  _ much _ more prevalent— and he halts halfway over Derek, steadying himself on his hands and knees.

“Oh,” he says, quietly, and then crumples a little back down into the mattress.

“Hey.” Derek’s playfulness takes a pause, and he wraps his arms around him. Will lets him guide his body, and he winds up still sort of on top of him, but Derek props himself up a little with the headboard. When they meet eyes again, Derek looks just slightly concerned. “You okay, babe?”

“I, um.” Will winces. He’s  _ really _ sore, now that he’s moved. He’s not sure if this is normal. Last night didn’t  _ hurt _ , exactly, but then again, he’s not in  _ pain _ right now. It’s just obvious that he was, well. Touched last night. Differently than he’s been touched before. “I’m alright.”

“Are you sore?” Derek asks, which, well. Maybe this  _ is _ normal.

So he nods. Derek’s eyes fill with gentle sympathy, and he pulls him close, kissing each of his cheeks in turn. “Oh, babe,” he murmurs. “I had a feeling you would be. Are you uncomfortable?”

“No.” What Will  _ really _ wants to say is that he’s missing how he felt inside of him, but that isn’t exactly something he knows how to say out loud. “I… it’s a good sore,” he settles on, and he wiggles into Derek’s lap.

“Mm.” Derek graces his hand across Will’s chest, then settles it down on his rear, with a little squeeze. He smiles at him, and for a second, he’s quiet, before asking, “Do you know the difference now?”

“The difference between what?”

Derek’s smile widens. “Between having sex and making love.”

Will pauses, for a second, and wonders if he’s gone red. Before last night, he most certainly would have. This morning, he’s not sure. He thinks he probably still has. But he doesn’t know the answer, so he shakes his head. “Last night…” he says. “That was making love.”

He’s not sure why he knows, but he knows it to be true. Derek nods, like he agrees, and says, “Ch’yeah.”

“But I don’t…” Will pauses again. “I don’t know if that’s different from— the other things we’ve done?”

“Well,” Derek says, “last night was… the whole thing, y’know? So I guess we don’t have anything to compare it to.” He pauses, and then flashes this brilliant grin, shining just as much as the daylight through the window. “Yet.”

“Yet,” Will echoes, and now he is  _ definitely _ flustered. Yet. Like there will be more times.

He could do this forever, and what a thought  _ that  _ is to face head-on.

“C’mere, babe,” Derek hums, and he pulls him close for a long, searching kiss, one that tastes like morning breath and Derek’s tongue. It’s everything Will can do not to completely crumble in his arms like this. He may be on top of him, physically, but Derek has all the power over him in the world.

And he proves it when, after a few of those kisses, his hand dances over Will’s behind. For a moment, he’s just cupping the skin, but then he moves a little, fingers gently gracing the sensitive spot. When he presses, it is  _ only _ the pad of his finger, and yet it sends a want so strong through Will that he whimpers right into his mouth.

Derek breaks their kiss and doesn’t move his hand. “That hurt?”

“No,” Will tells him, and  _ God _ , even his voice feels shaky. He’s never felt more helpless— and at the same time, more  _ willing _ to be that way. For him. For Derek. “God, no.”

“Okay.” Derek’s fingers play gently at the opening again, and now he takes a bit more liberty. Will lets off an involuntary whine, from somewhere in the back of his throat, as he touches him. “You’re still stretched,” Derek says, like it’s a slightly amusing discovery.

Which, of course he is. Will can barely breathe even with this simple gesture Derek is giving. He rocks back on him, and Derek brings his other hand to the bottom of his thigh, steadying him in his lap a little.

There’s something eager in those green eyes. “You like that?”

Will nods. His whole body feels like it’s throbbing again. Derek adds another finger, and it’s all he can do not to moan. He rocks back on him again, and Derek smirks.

He looks— so pretty. Will is glad to be putty in his hands.

“You want more, baby?” Derek asks, and Will swallows, nods more rapidly than he thinks he ever has. He leans forward to press his face down into his neck.

Derek’s hand falls flat on his back, and Will bites down on the skin of his shoulder. “Tell me, Will,” he hums, his fingers playing some kind of careful game, racking Will’s body with all this lingering desire. It’s like he’s re-igniting last night’s fire. “What do you want?”

“I want—” Will squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t think straight. “You. Please.”

Derek kisses his neck. “Where do you want me?”

“ _ Ah _ .” He shudders in his arms, as Derek’s fingers find the sensitive spot. “Where you were,” he manages to get out. “Last night. Please.”

“Mmm.” Derek is taking his slow, sweet time. Will hates him, and he loves him, all at once, in this moment. “I was a lot of places last night.”

“ _ Derek _ .” He whines his name out in a way he knows must egg him on all the more. “Just— do it again, please.” He can’t breathe properly. He bites his shoulder again, to ease his own tension. He’ll leave a mark, but he doesn’t, in this moment, care one bit. Derek has marked him before. “Make love to me again.”

“ _ Oh _ .” Derek chuckles like this is a surprise. He is  _ such _ a shit, and Will wants him so badly. “I see. Alright.” He eases Will’s head up, so they can meet eyes, and then remarks, “I can do that for you.”

He is so far from caring if it makes him look odd for wanting it twice in twelve hours. Now that he’s gone and done it, he wants  _ more _ . Derek wraps him up and complies, like this was his intention from the start when they woke this morning. Maybe it was. It’s a good intention.

“I love you,” Will blurts, just before he sinks down onto him.

Derek grins. “I love you, Will,” he replies, holding him by the hips, and then, “I’m gonna show you now, okay?”

“Okay,” Will breathes, and then he gives himself up to the morning bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! I'm getting very, very close to finishing my writing-ahead endeavors, in case you wanted an update. And I think I'm going to post chapter 34 out of sequence (i.e. sooner than next Wednesday). Stay tuned! And thank you, as always, for reading. <3


	34. emergency call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for putting up with back-to-back NSFW chapters!!! As it turns out, these two are pretty gay for each other. On to some important Plot Events! A little content warning, though: Derek does have some anxiety in this chapter, and there's an anxiety-induced police mention (only in his subconscious).

_ August 10th, 1961 _

_ Day 125 In Good Haven _

Over breakfast later that week, Derek begins, “I want,” and then pauses dramatically before finishing, “to make a painting.”

“A painting?” Will looks across the table at him. He’s wearing one of Will’s shirts, and though his hair is growing out a little, he’s freshly clean-shaven. “Of what?”

He shrugs, playing with his fork, and gazing contemplatively toward the ceiling. “I’m not sure,” he remarks. “But I have the day off tomorrow. And I was thinking maybe I’d start.”

“You should,” Will replies.

“There’s, uh… just one problem.” He pauses for a second, then puts his fork down and meets his eyes. “I… don’t have painting supplies.”

“Oh,” Will says. “Do you need me to get them for you?”

“Well, no, I can get them,” he says. “I just don’t know  _ where _ to get them.”

Will nods. He knows how he can help with this predicament. “I’ll ask around at work.”

*

That night, when he gets home from his shift, he brings takeout boxes with sandwiches (thanks, River) and good news. “I have a solution to your painting problem.”

“Oh?” Derek is on the couch in the living-room, with the radio on. They were at Annie’s for a few of the same hours today, but Derek went home earlier than he did. “What is it?”

He puts the takeout box down on the coffee table, leans down to kiss his cheek hello, and then says, “There’s a store a few towns over, and I think you oughta check it out; it’ll probably have what you’re looking for.” He pauses. “But I’m not so sure it’s safe for you to go by yourself.”

“Oh.” Derek sobers, just a little, as Will sinks down on the couch next to him. He knows, without either of them saying it out loud, that he’s thinking of the incident at the gas station. “But… you’re working tomorrow, right?”

Will nods. “Kenny said he’d take ya.” It was a quick negotiation at work.  _ Hang out with Curly?  _ Kent had said, a big grin on his face.  _ You betcha, Dexy. But don’t be surprised if he ends up getting the hots for me. You know I have that effect on people. _

Will had rolled his eyes, swatted his arm with the nearest dish rag, and then said,  _ Thanks, Kenny. _

“Don’t worry,” Will adds now, turning his knees to face the lounging Derek. “He knows how to be safe.”

Derek looks a little skeptical, but not opposed to the idea. “The whole town knows he sleeps around,” he says, slowly, “and you call that being safe?”

“I mean he knows how to keep  _ other _ people safe.” Will rests his hand on Derek’s knee. “People who want to be kept safe.”

Derek’s doubt dissolves a little, and he nods, slowly. “Oh.”

“Trust me,” he adds. “He’s done it for me.” Derek nods again, and then Will adds, with a small grin, “And he said he’s excited to hang out with you.”

Derek laughs a little. “I feel like I’m in grade school and you just set me up a playdate.”

Will snorts. It kind of does sound that way, doesn’t it? “I think you two’ll have fun.” He pauses, then adds, “And you can get your painting stuff.”

“Thank you, babe.” Derek rests his hand on top of his, where it’s sitting on his knee, and then says, “Now, c’mere.” He wraps his arms around him and pulls him close, and Will laughs a little, being wrestled into that grip. “I missed you, you big sexy waiter.”

He tucks his head into his neck, winding his legs around his waist. “You saw me no more than four hours ago, my love.”

Derek pulls him backwards onto the couch. “Yeah,” he replies, pressing a kiss to his mouth, “but that is  _ way _ too long.”

*

_ August 11th, 1961 _

_ Day 126 In Good Haven _

Derek doesn’t know the first thing about cars, but somehow he knows that Kent’s is nice.

It’s this nice, shiny shade of light blue, and it rides low to the ground, with teal leather on the inside. He’s seen it parked outside of Annie’s practically every time he’s been there, since Kent does, after all, live and work in the same building— but today is his first time riding in it. When he slides into the passenger’s seat, in the driveway at Will’s, Kent is all smiles behind the wheel.

“Curly!” he cries. The radio is on, and there’s some awful doo-wop old-time rock and roll shit playing. “I can’t believe I get to take you out. What an honor.”

Derek laughs. He rarely sees Kent, outside of Annie’s, but given that he’s been there so much lately with the repainting stuff, that means he’s seen a lot of him. “Dude, your car is  _ sweet _ ,” he tells him. “So retro.”

“ _ Pff _ . Retro to you, maybe,” Kent replies. He pats the top of the passenger’s seat. “This is the latest and greatest. I got it last year.”

“Ah.” Derek nods. He checks his pocket to be sure he has his money, as Kent pulls out of the driveway. It’s all there. It would suck if he got all the way to whichever store they’re going to and then realized he didn’t bring any money. He’s done that before, in his regular, New York life. “So that’s where my money goes every time I eat at your esteemed establishment.”

“Wrong.” Kent finger-guns him. “It also goes to my wardrobe.”

He laughs at the car’s fancy ceiling. “ _ Right _ . Ch’yeah. Of course.”

The dirt road Will lives on does not sound like it treats Kent’s car well. He drives with one hand, and even though he seems  _ confident _ behind the wheel, Derek wonders if he’s one of those can’t-drive gays. He himself is one.

“Thank you,” he tells him. “For being willing to bring me to this place.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Kent replies, smoothing his hair. Derek isn’t sure he’s ever actually seen it out of a diner hat, but his cowlicks are just as prominent even without it. His clothes aren’t so different from what he wears to work. “Just so you know,” he adds, with a glance his way, “I don’t think I’ll go into the store. Although I will stand outside and have a smoke. Does that sound fine by you?”

Derek nods. “That sounds great,” he replies. He has a game plan. He needs canvas, a few different colors of paint, and some good brushes. And  _ maybe _ a palette. For the aesthetic. “I won’t be long in there.”

“Oh, take as much time as you need, curly.” Kent grins, then rolls his window down as they turn onto paved road. “After all, it creates quality time for us.”

*

It takes about forty minutes to drive there. Kent pulls into a small parking lot outside a cluster of stores, then gestures to the furthest one. “There’s your heaven, pretty boy.”

Derek studies the storefront. It’s an art supply place, alright; he can see frames and easel stuff in the windows. “How did you know where to find this place?”

Kent shrugs, leaning his elbow out the window. “Used to go around with an artist.” He pauses, then gazes in Derek’s direction and remarks, “You type are weird, but boy, was he pretty.”

Derek chuckles. “You ever get tired of jumping from person to person?”

Kent snorts. “And what else do you propose I do?”

He digs into his pocket for his money. “Fair point.” As he’s starting to open the side door, he asks, “So you’re gonna stand outside and wait?”

“In a few minutes.” Kent tries to blow his hair out of his face, but it falls right back down to where it was. “You go eat your heart out. I’ll be waiting.”

“Thanks, Kent.” He’s itching to get inside. It’s the little things in life. “This is super chill of you.”

“Oh, y’know.” Kent flashes a grin, dusting off his own shoulder, and remarks, “I do it for the love.”

Derek laughs to himself as he walks across the parking lot. He’s pretty sure he’ll never stop getting a kick out of Kent.

Inside, the store is sparsely populated, but it’s also bigger than it looks. It smells like a Michaels, but it’s small and indie. Well, he guesses it isn’t so much  _ indie _ as it is existing in 1961 when huge chain stores aren’t really a thing yet, but still. He likes the vibe of it.

So he grabs a basket, and starts his stroll through the sections. He picks up a canvas in a modest size, and then a small pack of paints, and makes his slow way over to the brushes, where he spends a long time trying to decide if he wants to get a bunch of them or just a few small ones. How often will he use them? He guesses pretty often, if he’s going to start painting. But then again, how long will he even—

_ Oops _ . He almost crashes into another customer, a guy he wasn’t aware of who’s standing next to him. “Sorry,” he says, and the guy shakes his head.

“No problem, dude.”

Derek goes back to the brushes. Then he does a double take. The guy he almost crashed into looks like a hipster, sort of, from his jean jacket to his beard to the canvas backpack over his shoulder. It’s nothing like he’s seen anyone else wear around here. He doesn’t stare, but he  _ does _ clock it as weird.

He’s willing to brush this off as some new style movement or whatever, right up until the point where the hipster guy takes out a cell phone.

He freezes, and still tries not to stare, as he gets his bearings. Everything in the store looks basically the same. The hipster guy is the only other customer he has eyes on right now, but it’s enough.

“Excuse me?”

It takes the guy a second to realize Derek is talking to him. He looks up from his phone. “Yeah?”

“Uh, where’d you get that?”

The guy pauses, then looks down into his own shopping basket. “Oh, uh. With the paints.” He points down the aisle. “That way and to the right.”

But Derek isn’t talking about his watercolors. “No, uh.” He will keep his chill. “I mean where’d you get that phone.”

“Um…” The guy turns the phone over, turns on the display, and knits his brows like Derek has said something weird. “The Verizon store?”

_ Fuck _ . That does it. The glitching shit is happening again.

He will stay cool this time. He’s in a more public, populated place. He should get to a phone. He should—  _ yes _ . He should call Chowder. “Would you, uh,” he says, to Hipster Guy, “mind if I borrowed it quickly?”

But this seems to solidify Hipster Guy’s vague unease. “Sorry, dude,” he says, shaking his head, and he tucks his phone away for good measure. “Saving battery.”

Which, whatever. If this one guy doesn’t want to share his phone, there has to be someone in here who  _ will _ help him.

Right?

(Please.)

He walks back to the front of the store. Everything inside looks the same. Did he cross through time when he came in the door, and not even notice? Jesus. He won’t freak out. He has to stay calm. He has to keep it together. All he needs is a phone.

“Excuse me,” he says, for the second time in five minutes, to the lady at the front desk.

“Yes!” she says. “Can I help you, sir?” She’s middle-aged and has several tattoos, which really should have tipped him off. There’s even a modern  _ cash register _ in front of her. Did he really not notice all of this when he came in, or have things inside changed?

“I’m sorry; this is kind of weird,” he says, vaguely aware that he sounds like a socially awkward thirteen-year-old. Which is better than sounding like an anxious mess, he guesses? He doesn’t know. He has to keep a one-track mind. “I just— was wondering if you had a phone I could use?”

“A phone?” The desk lady squints a little. “Well… it’s for employee use only.” She pauses, as Derek’s stomach sinks a little, and then asks, “Do you have some kind of an emergency?”

“Not exactly,” he tells her. “I just— well, I don’t have my phone with me, and—”

She sort of interrupts him. “If you do have an emergency, I can call for you.”

“It’s not—”  _ Stay chill.  _ “It’s not exactly an emergency.”

“Well, I’m really sorry sir,” she says, with this patronizing White People Smile, “but if it isn’t an emergency, the phone really isn’t for customer use.”

“Okay.”  _ Please stay chill.  _ He can ask someone else. “I— yeah. Of course. I’m sorry.” He takes a long breath, then looks to the basket in his hand. He should pay, before she starts labeling his behavior as suspicious. “Uh, I’ll buy this.”

“Great,” she says, and rings him up. He tries to breathe normally while she does so, paying for the stuff in what, thank God, is a reasonable amount of even 2021 dollars. She gives him a paper bag for it all, and it looks like she’s ready to send him off with a chipper  _ have a nice day _ .

“Do you…” he starts, before she can. “Do you know if there’s a payphone around here or something?”

“A payphone?” She shakes her head, like this is weirding her out. “I don’t think so.”

“Right.”  _ Stay chill.  _ “Uh, chill.”

“Here’s your receipt.”

“Thank you.”

He hates the way she’s looking at him. “Are you sure there isn’t an emergency, sir?”

“ _ Yes _ .” He cannot have the cops called on him or something. Not here, not in 1961, not ever. “I’m sure.”

And then, from a few feet away, someone says, “You need to use a phone?”

He turns, with his bag of newly bought stuff, and looks to the speaker. It’s a girl, probably around his age, and she has brown skin and dreadlocks. She’s holding out a phone with a hot-pink case, and he has never been more grateful in his life. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” As he steps out of line, she hands him the phone. He hasn’t held an iPhone in he doesn’t even know how long, but she already has it open to the phone app. “You’re looking stressed.”

He actually laughs, for some reason. Thank the universe for this random girl. “Thank you so much,” he says. “I— yeah. I just need to get in touch with someone, and my phone, it’s— I left it at home.”

“Go right ahead, then.” She adjusts the beanie she’s wearing. “Call who you need.”

“Thank you.” He dials Chowder’s number. His hand is shaking. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Her friendly shrug is the epitome of the chill he aspires to.

He has not heard a normal ring through a phone line in  _ months _ . It rings three times, and he chants, in his head, as it does.  _ Please pick up. Please pick up. Please. _

And then, “Hello?”

“ _ Chowder _ .” A surge of relief washes through him. “C, it’s me. Don’t hang up, please.”

“Nursey?!”

Chowder’s voice— even when it’s alarmed-slash-surprised— is like a warm hug. “Yeah,” he tells him. “Yes, it’s me.” He has  _ never _ been more relieved to hear it.

“ _ Dude _ !” Chowder cries. Derek is aware, suddenly, that dreads girl has stepped away, like she’s giving him his privacy. “Bro, where have you been?”

“It’s a  _ long _ story,” he says, and is it ever. “But just— quickly, can you answer me something? How long has it been since you last heard from me?”

“Eight days,” Chowder replies. “I’ve been trying to reach you, but— are you on your way home?”

“Not exactly.” He thinks he might cry, just at the sheer relief of hearing his voice, of knowing the real world hasn’t passed too much time by. “But I’m— I’m using someone else’s phone. I’m in this art store. In Bangor.”

“How’d you—” Chowder asks. “I mean, how are you— so obviously you’re in, like, regular time right now?”

“Yeah.” God, it sounds fucking crazy. “Dude, C, the  _ weirdest _ shit has been happening to me. I was stuck there, but now I’m, like, doing this thing where I click back and forth at random times—” He knows he’s speaking a mile a minute, but he keeps his voice low, staring at a random wall of frames. “And I’m, like,  _ very _ fucking anxious right now, but I’m in a public place so I’m trying to—”

“Nursey,” Chowder says, evenly. “Bro. You should come home.”

“I’m  _ trying _ to come home, C,” he replies. “Time won’t let me through to you.”

“I just, like,” he says, “I don’t think you’re being safe? You  _ know _ you’re not safe there.”

“I know!” He must sound so fucking stupid. “I know. But I got stuck, right after I talked to you— last week, I guess it was? For me, it was a lot longer ago. I got stuck. I—” He exhales, shakily. “I have so much to tell you.”

“Well, you’re in the right time now, right?” Chowder’s voice is tinged with concern, but also with that gentle best-friend chastising that Derek totally fucking deserves right now.

“Yes. I— yeah.” He looks around the store. “But only since, like, five minutes ago. This is the second time this has happened.”

“Then just come home now,” Chowder says, plainly, like it’s that simple.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I— well, I have a feeling I only have this for a window of time.” He can’t be sure, but that’s how it was last time, so it’s probably the same, right?  _ God _ , he doesn’t even know. “And if I try to start moving, and then I get sent back— then I’m lost, and I stick out like a sore thumb back then, and that just—” He feels ill. “It scares the shit out of me, C.”

“Nursey,” Chowder says, his voice still even. “I’m starting to get really worried about you.”

“Look, dude,” he says, because he can’t stand the thought that he’s worrying the one person left in his life back home who still checks in on him, “I promise I’m trying to get back, okay? I promise I’m working on it.” And he  _ is _ , but  _ shit _ , it’s become so much more complicated than that. He has to keep his thoughts together. There’s so much he needs to say, and no time. “Can you do something for me?”

“Of course,” Chowder says, because he’s the best.

“I need you to just call my agent— you can find her through the agency website— or, like, email her, whatever—” He takes a breath. “And just tell her I’m out of town, but that I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Uh,” Chowder says. “I mean, like, o _ kay _ , but what if she asks me to elaborate on that?”

“Just say I’m having the craziest summer trip ever and it’s a vacation fiasco.”

“I—” Chowder halts, then sighs. “Okay, Nursey. I’ll do it. But can you just promise me you’ll be safe?”

“Yes.” He loves his best friend so much. “I promise.”

There’s a pregnant pause, and he wonders if Chowder is going to hang up, if he’s getting too exhausting, if he won’t be his best friend anymore when he makes his way home. Because his anxious brain loves to blow shit out of proportion. And then Chowder remarks, “I know this is about that guy.”

His brain comes to a screeching halt. “What?”

“Your guy,” Chowder says. “Will? I know this is about him.”

“What do you mean?”

Chowder pauses, and then says, “You totally fell for someone you can’t have, didn’t you?”

Derek lets off a long sigh. Chowder can read him like a book. Why hide the truth? “More than fell for him.”  _ And the thought of leaving him without explanation makes me sick. _

“Does he feel the same?”

Months of Will flash by as Derek closes his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Oh,  _ Nursey _ .”

Chowder doesn’t sound disappointed, the way Derek feared he would. He just sounds  _ sad _ . Like he feels bad for him. Like Derek is a lost cause.

Which he is.

“Look,” he starts, opening his eyes again to stare at his shoes. “I know I got myself into this. But I… I don’t even know how to start to get myself out.”

“You  _ can’t _ stay there,” Chowder says, emphatic and urgent.

“I know that, C,” he replies, which he always has. “It’s not even an option. I just…”

_ I love him. _

_ I don’t know how to leave him. _

_ I want him to be it for me, and I know he can’t be. _

“I have to figure out how to leave here, knowing I’ll never see him again.”

“ _ Jeez _ , Nursey,” Chowder murmurs.

“I know.” He sighs. “You told me so. This was a bad idea.”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking,” Chowder says.

“Then what were you thinking?”

“I just…” He’s quiet for a second, then, with bittersweetness in his voice, remarks, “It figures, love finds you in the one place you can’t have it, right?”

“ _ Ha _ .” Derek is maybe dying inside a little. “You’re telling me, bro.”

“I’m really, really sorry, Nursey.”

“I just…” The girl’s phone case has rhinestones on it. He tries to focus on their weird bumpy texture under his hand, instead of the gloom stretched out before him. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”

Chowder doesn’t say anything, so he keeps talking. “And being with him… it’s like there’s nothing wrong, when we’re alone together. It’s like everything is normal.” He pauses. “But everything is  _ so _ far from normal, and I just— I love him, and I have to figure out how to live with the fact that I can’t have him. Not for as long as I want him.”

It’s a lot of words at once, but it feels good to get them out. “Which is how long?” Chowder asks.

He sighs. “I don’t know,” he says. “Forever. However long he’ll have me.”

“ _ Nursey _ .”

“I know, C.” He runs his free hand through his hair. He really needs a haircut. And a good one, too. Not a self-imposed makeshift one over Will’s sink. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Chowder replies. “I just… feel bad for you.”

“You don’t have to feel bad for me.” He’s grateful, so grateful, that he’s not just losing his shit in a gas station bathroom the way he was the last time this happened. “I’m gonna figure this out. I promise.”

“Please just be careful,” Chowder urges.

“I will.”

“I’ll call your agent, okay?” he adds. “I’ll make sure she knows you’re okay.”

“Thank you, C.” He loves his best friend. “You’re the best.” He glances around to find dreads girl, and she’s across the room, looking through random textile samples. She doesn’t look impatient, but she does throw a glance his way. “I think I have to give this girl her phone back now.”

“Okay.” Chowder pauses. “I love you, bro. Please be safe.”

“I love you too.” This was a good phone call to make. A good way to use whatever minutes in this time that he has. “And I will be,” he promises. “I’ll get in touch with you again, somehow. Soon. Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Chowder replies.

When they hang up, Derek lets off a long exhale. He’s still shaking, but he kept his head through that entire encounter. It’s the Chowder effect.

He should go outside and get his bearings. He’s not sure how long this window will last.

“Hey, thanks a lot,” he says, as he meets dreads girl in the middle to pass her phone back to her.

“No problem,” she replies, pocketing it away. “Are you okay?”

“I’m better now,” he says, which is true. Mostly. Sort of. If you don’t count the lingering sense of dread that Chowder’s very good point gave him. He  _ can’t _ stay in the past.

But God.  _ Will _ .

“Cool.” Dreads girl smiles. “Have a good day.”

She walks out the front door with a jingle of the entrance bell. Derek looks down into his bag for a second, takes a long, deep breath, and walks out the same way she did.

Outside, Kent is smoking on the curb.

_God_ , this time stuff is so _fucking_ _weird_.

“Got what you needed?” Kent asks.

He nods. The anxious tremor is wearing off. “And then some.”

“Sweet.” Kent flashes a grin, then puts out his cigarette. “Let’s get outta here.”

*

Kent turns the radio on again, and they drive in comfortable silence until they get on the freeway. The sun beats down on the car at full blast, and Derek looks down into his bag of new painting stuff until he feels like he can breathe properly again.

If Kent notices that he’s acting off, he doesn’t say anything. Which, honestly, Derek is grateful for, in this moment.

And he thinks he’s in the clear of having to think about his problem, until Kent says, “Curly, do you mind if I ask you something?”

He leans his arm out the open window. “Go for it.”

“And don’t be offended,” Kent adds, which is always what white people say right before they’re about to offend you, so he puts his guard up a little.

“You don’t get to dictate what’s offensive,” he tells him, which is true in any decade.

Kent seems to get the message, but shakes his head, waving him off. “It’s not about your skin, pretty boy,” he replies, which, okay, good. Kent pauses, before adding, “It’s about Will.”

Derek freezes a little. “Oh.”

Kent taps his hand on the wheel for a second, then asks, “What’s your intention with him?”

He studies him for a second, feeling suddenly like he’s sixteen and talking to his high school girlfriend’s terrifying father. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” Kent says, “what’s your intention with him?”

Derek takes a second before responding. Why not be honest? “I love him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kent says, waving him off again. “I know that. Plenty of people love other people.” He pauses. “But you… come from special circumstances.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t love him.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Kent says, and for his part, he looks sincere. “But,” he continues. “What I’m asking is.”

Derek waits. He thinks he knows what’s coming.

“What happens to Will when it’s time for you to go back to the century you came from?”

Yeah. There it is. He lets the silence hang in the air between them for a second, then exhales. “I don’t know,” he answers, honestly.

“Yeah,” Kent replies. He’s frowning a little, but he doesn’t look angry. “Me, neither.”

“But I… you’ve gotta know that I’ve thought of that, Kent,” he adds. “Why do you think I’m still in town?” he asks. “It’s not to paint your diner.” Kent chuckles a little. “No offense.”

“No, none taken,” Kent says. ‘I know that.”

“I’m not just with Will for my own entertainment,” he tells him. He feels like he’s making his case to a court. “I love him. I didn’t expect to love him. But I do.”

“I know that, curly,” he says. “I can see it. Between you two. I understand.” He taps his hand on the wheel again for a second. “But… for Will, this isn’t— it’s all new.” He looks to him. “You’re the only man he’s ever…”

“I know,” Derek finishes, because of course he knows that. “And I value that. So much.”

“So it’s not… he’s not  _ casual _ , about these things,” Kent continues. “That’s how I know he’s serious about you.”

Derek exhales. God, he loves him. He loves him so much.

“I’m sure you’ve been in love before,” Kent says, his voice even. “Right?”

“I… yeah.” He nods. He has, but it’s been… different. “But not love like this.”

“What do you mean by ‘love like this’?”

He looks out the window. The sky is bright blue, and the sun hangs low in the west; they’ve been out for at least an hour or two.

_ Love like this. _

“I don’t know exactly how to describe it,” he says, not looking at Kent. “But Will… he’s just so…  _ real _ , y’know? He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever known. Which sounds, like, real fucking cheesy, but it’s true. He’s authentic, and compassionate, and we just… we get along so well.” He takes a long breath. The afternoon is so peaceful, against the hum of Kent’s engine. “He brings out the best in me.”

“And you in him,” Kent says. “Will’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him right now.”

Derek looks to him. He, too, has his eyes elsewhere. He smooths his hair down and adds, “And that’s what scares me.”

“Because of not knowing what happens when I go home,” Derek posits.

“Exactly.” Kent finally meets his eyes, and he doesn’t look mean, or angry. He doesn’t even look upset. He just looks uncertain. “Look, I’m the only family he has left, curly,” he tells him. “Somebody’s gotta look out for him.”

“No, I know,” Derek replies. “And you’re a great friend. You’re like a brother to him.”

“And he to me,” Kent says. “Brothers… they’ve gotta look out for one another. He looks out for me. I look out for him.” He frowns just a little. “When he lost his folks… he was in a dark place for awhile. And it sort of dulled him out, y’know? Created all those hard edges.” He looks Derek’s way again, and nods a little. “You know. He was like that when you met him.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re…  _ softening _ him,” Kent says. “It’s the oddest thing. Never thought I’d see him like this.” He takes a long breath, then puts his eyes back on the road, shrugging. “So it just… leaves me worried. For when you two part ways.”

Dejectedly, Derek hangs his head. The thought is more than awful. “I don’t want to leave him.”

“But?” Kent asks, like he knows there’s more.

“But I can’t stay.” He pauses. “Not forever. This time period… it’s not safe for me.” He feels a little sick again. “Especially not loving Will.”

“Ah.” Kent nods. “Yep.”

“I don’t expect you to fully get it, but.” He wonders if he should reassure him somehow. “It gets better, y’know. For all of us.” Someone like Kent, he knows, would marvel at the way he knows the world. “People like me, and people like you.”

Kent keeps his eyes out the windshield, digesting this for a second, and then hums, “That’s good to know.”

A brief silence falls in the car. The current song on the radio ends, and the personality guy starts giving them the latest weather forecast.  _ Tonight’ll be clear skies, with a low of 72. Tomorrow, hot and humid, high of 85. You can count on some scattered thunderstorms from place to place. _

And then Derek has the most unrealistic, idealistic thought.

He looks to Kent. “You… don’t think there’s any chance he’d come home with me.”

“Home? With you?” Kent’s eyebrows shoot up. “To the future?”

He should have thought that through before he said it out loud, but. Whatever. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“It  _ does _ sound crazy,” Kent replies, nodding steadily. “Off the Goddamn reservation.”

“Any more crazy than me spending the summer here with him?”

Kent is quiet. He bites his lip for a second, then, after hesitating, says, “Fair point, but.” He pauses. “I just can’t see him leaving Good Haven like that.”

“I know.” Derek sighs. “It’s a selfish thought for me to have.”

“But,” Kent says, like he’s observing something. “You love him enough to have it.”

“Of course I do.” He thinks maybe he always will.

Kent looks contemplative, like there’s a lot on his mind, but he isn’t saying much of it. He taps his hand again, then turns up the radio a few ticks before responding. “Well, I don’t know, curly.” He shrugs. “Maybe you oughta ask him.”

Maybe, if he ever figures out how to even begin to say it, Derek will.

*

Back home, Will almost has dinner ready.

He’s sort of like some oversized ginger housewife, standing at the stove in an apron. He’s minding a steaming pot of some kind of vegetable, and when Derek walks through the front door, he glances over his shoulder and waves to him. “Welcome home.”

_ Welcome home _ . What a colloquial term. This isn’t  _ home _ for Derek, not exactly— but Will feels like home. It’s a type of home he’s getting used to, even when his real home is decades and miles away.

“Hey, babe,” he says, setting his paper bag of newly purchased supplies on the counter, safely distant from the actual food. “How was work?”

“It was busy.” Will pauses, placing a lid down on his pot; with a closer look, Derek can tell there are carrots inside. He walks to him and wraps him up for a gentle kiss hello. “How did you fare at the shop?”

“I did great.” He peers sideways into his bag. “I’ll show you what I got after dinner, if you want.”

“That sounds great.” Will pauses. “And how was traveling with Kenny?”

There’s the smallest bit of concern etched on his face, and for a moment Derek debates if he should even tell him what happened in the shop. The repeat instance of glitching through time, combined with his talk with Kent on the drive home, has left him tied-up inside, caught between knowing he can’t stay here forever and not wanting  _ this _ to end.

But he can’t keep things from Will, because that will make it worse. So he meets his eyes and takes a deep breath, then says, “It happened to me again.”

“Oh, no.” A full frown surfaces now, and Derek knows that without saying it, Will still understands what this means. “Der. Are you alright?”

“I’m alright.” He takes both of his hands, squeezes them tight, and nods. “I was safe. A girl let me use her phone, and I called Chowder.”

“Oh, my love,” Will whispers. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. I— it doesn’t make sense. How did you get back?”

“I just… walked out the front doors.” He pauses. He knows how crazy this sounds, but Will is well familiar with this brand of crazy. “I was calmer this time.”

Will’s frown creases, and there’s so much concern in his eyes that Derek, for a second, feels awful about what happened, despite his lack of control over it. Will gives another squeeze to both of his hands, at the same time, and then tips his forehead to rest against his. Derek exhales. The last of the tension from the incident dissolves entirely.

He’s safe.

“Derek,” Will whispers, and he feels him rub his thumb against his hand. “Time wants you home.”

It hurts, and Derek isn’t sure why. He knows Will isn’t  _ trying _ to hurt him. Will wants what’s best for him, and all he’s doing is merely saying out loud the thing Derek has been thinking since the first incident at the gas station. He thought it was isolated. Now that he knows it isn’t, it’s clear.

But to hear it from Will hurts. Because going home is synonymous with losing him. Losing  _ this _ .

“I know,” he replies, because for the moment, those are the only words he has.

They stand there for a moment, in the kitchen, suspended on this truth they both know. The carrots bubble in the background, water threatening to spill over the sides of the pan. Will pays them no mind.

“But,” Derek says finally, once he’s gathered his words, “not tonight.”

“Oh, no,” Will says, nodding his agreement. “Not tonight.”

It’s quiet again, for a second. Derek tries another tight squeeze to his hands. Will returns it, and he kisses him, too, for good measure, lightly and briefly on the lips. A little reassurance.

“I still have painting to do,” he adds, meeting his eyes again. “And… the summer’s almost over.” He pauses. “Might as well finish it out, right?”

Will nods. Derek watches him swallow, and when he smiles, it looks so bittersweet. “You’re right,” he says. “I just want to be sure you get home safe, when the time comes.”

“I will.” He takes a long breath. “But for now…”

For now, he can’t bear the thought of saying goodbye.

“You and me,” Will says, finishing his thought in a much better way. His voice is steady, even when his eyes are still a little sad. “It’s you and me.”

“You and me,” he replies, with a nod. It’s like a little vow, and he never wants to break it.

They share a collective deep breath, and one last squeeze of their hands. Then Will nods a little, and Derek can see him shift right into  _ there’s a task to be accomplished _ mode. The topic has been tabled, but it still hurts his chest a little.

Tonight, it won’t matter. He won’t let it matter.

He has to make whatever time he has with him count as best it can.

“Now,” Will says, and his tone is less sad, more neutral. “I best finish dinner. And I’d be glad if you showed me what you got after we ate.”

Derek nods, as he walks to the stove, and picks the paper bag back up off the counter. “That sounds great,” he replies, and Will saves the carrots from certain death.

Much later that night, when Will is under him in bed, naked save the sheets that wrap around them, he kisses him with a fervor they’ve never quite had before, and whispers, “I love you.”

Will moans, just gently, as they move together. Derek pushes closer to him, further within him, and tries to memorize the noise. “I love you, too,” Will tells him, his voice so breathy and strained.

If this is what he has, for now, then he’ll have it as long as he can.


	35. ticket to ride

_ August 15th, 1961 _

_ Day 130 In Good Haven _

Will’s dreams take him to the ocean.

It’s not any ocean he’s ever known in a dream. At least, not since Pa was gone. The ocean that has plagued him in his sleep since 1950 is a daunting thing, menacing and dangerous, swallowing him whole. It’s given him nightmares— mostly, the same nightmare, actually; in it, he falls off a boat and the waves overtake him. He can’t breathe, and the water is cold, and he sinks into the deep. He wakes as his consciousness slips, gasping for air, desperate to rid his lungs of saltwater and foam.

Other times, it’s been a bit less vivid— lurking on the horizon, or creeping close to him on a beach, or surrounding him on all sides, as he stands on a boat in the huge, dark deep with no shore in sight. These thoughts used to comfort him, before Pa was gone, but all they’ve done since then is find him in fitful dreams.

Until now.

Because now, when he dreams, the ocean looks different. It’s warm, and he’s on a rocky shore, and the waves come gently crashing toward him, and the water— it calls, in a way. Beckons, like it always used to. It’s not dark; it’s a million shades of blue. Though it stretches far beyond the horizon, its endlessness doesn’t feel like despair.

He’s aware, suddenly, of Derek next to him. They sit on a rock, shoreside, together. Derek winds his fingers in his and nods toward the water. “Don’t be afraid.”

It’s all he ever says.  _ Don’t be afraid _ . And when Will looks to the sea, in  _ these _ dreams, he’s never afraid.

In these dreams, the water looks like comfort.

He can’t remember when he last felt that way.

More and more, it calls. He wakes this morning draped halfway across Derek in bed, to the point where he wonders faintly if he might be crushing him. But if he is, Derek hasn’t woken to protest. He’s sleeping in a pair of Will’s underwear, and his tattooed arm is outstretched, clinging to a pillow on the other side.

It’s sunrise. Will rolls out of bed.

His chores await, but even as he dresses, goes downstairs, and crosses the yard from the barn, his dream lingers in his mind. He can’t shake that warmth, or the image of the waves in his mind, the way the water stretched so far on the horizon. Nor can he forget the sound of Derek’s voice.

_ Don’t be afraid. _

He’s never been afraid of the ocean, or at least he’s never been man enough to admit that to himself. But for far too long, he’s been afraid of the way it makes him feel.

Maybe it’s time that ought to change.

*

_ August 18th, 1961 _

_ Day 133 In Good Haven _

Derek can’t stay here.

He’s always known that. It’s just that it’s becoming more and more obvious, as things stare him in the face. Today, the evidence of that is plenty, as he finishes up the very last work on the paint job at Annie’s. He’s gone over it inside and out, just like he did at Eric’s, and though it’s earned him some in the way of making 1961 dollars, what else has it done, really, except prolong his stay?

He thought he was stuck here. Each time he leaves Good Haven— first with Will, at the gas station, and now, more recently, at the art store— it’s become clear to him that he isn’t. Not really. His little glitches into the future may not last long individually, but something tells him that they’re the way home.

_ Home _ . He knows it’s where he needs to be. All he’s been doing for months is trying to figure out how he can get there. But all the same, his time in Good Haven has come with this gigantic, unintentional byproduct— and that’s falling in love with Will.

He dreads the inevitable day when he has to say goodbye.

There’s a part of him that wants to ask him to do the unthinkable.  _ Come with me _ . It would only take three words to put the idea out into the air. But when he watches Will at work, like he’s doing now, gazing at him across the room in Annie’s as he washes his hands in the sink in the back, he knows somewhere in his heart that he can’t ask that of him.

Well, he can  _ ask _ . He just thinks he knows what the answer will be.

Of course Will can’t come with him.

It hurts.

But for now, he has to do this one day at a time. And when he goes, he needs a plan; it can’t just happen all at once. He has  _ stuff _ here, anyway; he’s moved completely in with Will, and he’d have to pack to leave.

He keeps his eyes on Will, who’s bustling around the bar, just another day on the job, and he’s so zoned out scrubbing his hands clean of paint stains he knows won’t really come out for days that he barely notices another person standing next to him.

“The place looks great, Nursey.”

He looks up. It’s Johnson, the dishwasher who may or may not be crazy, and he’s wearing his Samwell ball cap again, the one that shadows his face. He must be on break or something.

“Thanks,” Derek replies, finally shutting the water off. 

Johnson leans against the wall. Derek looks around, instinctively, like someone might be listening, but the closest person to them is River, at the grill, who is surrounded by kitchen noise much too loud to overhear the two of them should Johnson start spouting off some weird omniscient shit the way he did the last time Derek talked to him.

Other than River, the staff are in their usual arrangement. Will at the bar, Kent at the host stand, Denice out waiting tables. A few others sprinkled in here and there. Right now, Will is cutting a slice of one of the many pies in Eric’s deliveries, for a patron at the bar who must have ordered it. It’s late, and they’ll go home soon, back to the shelter of the farm.

There’s really something great about this group of people.

“You’ve left quite the mark on this place,” Johnson says, which, okay, he’s really creepy sometimes. Derek literally forgot he was standing right here.

He stations himself on the other side of the sink. “I guess,” he says, in reply, which is a lame answer but an honest one. Aside from painting a few buildings and falling in love, he hasn’t exactly done much.

Maybe that’s all it takes.

Johnson folds his arms, and Derek feels the out-of-place comment coming before it actually happens. He thinks Johnson is looking at him, but he can’t be sure. “I hear you’ve been having some time troubles.”

After his last encounter with this guy, Derek isn’t exactly  _ alarmed _ by his knowledge of this. Just super fucking confused. Because, like.  _ How _ . “You are super fucking weird, you know that?”

Johnson laughs, shrugging his shoulders. “If you say so,” he replies. “I’m merely whatever the author wants me to be.”

“The author,” Derek echoes. “Like… God?”

“ _ Pff _ ,” Johnson says, and the only elaboration he gives is, “No.”

There’s a slightly uncomfortable silence. Derek picks at a little blotch of seafoam green paint on the inside of his palm. Soap wouldn’t wash it, but he figures maybe later, if he takes a shower…

“But you have,” Johnson presses, abruptly. “Been having time troubles. Haven’t you?”

Derek squints at him. Maybe this guy is entirely a figment of his imagination. A time-travel induced hallucination. Will’s and Eric’s mentions of him have been invented by his brain, inserted into conversation as false memories, to compensate for the fact that he’s losing his mind.

But then he remembers something. From the last time Johnson talked to him. Something he said.  _ I could get you back to New York, when the time is right _ .

“Look, uh,” he says, though it pains him to think of it too hard. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

Johnson shrugs again. “I may or may not be able to answer, but ask away.”

_ So fucking weird.  _ “When we talked,” Derek begins, “awhile ago. You told me… you could get me back to New York.”

Johnson perks up a little, like this has piqued his interest. Derek continues, speaking in a low voice, least Kent or Will overhear. He’s not so sure why he’s ashamed that he’s asking. But mostly, he doesn’t want to have to think about how to talk about going home with Will. And if Kent hears, Will will know, and, just…

“Were you serious?” he asks Johnson.

“Of course I was,” Johnson replies, easily. “I never joke about plot convenience.”

This guy makes his head hurt. “A ‘yes’ would’ve done it.”

“Well, I’m just saying.” Johnson digs into his pocket. “I’m a bus driver, when I find the time for it. And it just so happens that I might have the time for you.”

He hands him something from his pocket. It’s a small piece of card stock, or maybe just hardy paper, and it’s this muted sort of yellow color. Derek turns it over.

It’s a bus ticket.

_ One Way _ , it reads.  _ GHV —> NYC.  _ And even weirder,  _ John Johnson _ is listed as  _ Driver _ .

He feels like this is some kind of a scam. “Uh…” He looks back up at Johnson. “You’re giving this to me?”

“Free of charge,” Johnson replies. “But notice the date.”

He looks back down at the ticket. There’s a date in the top corner.  _ Valid from 27 Aug 1961 _ .

He blinks. “I don’t understand.”

“It means it won’t work if you try to use it before then.” Johnson points to the paper like he’s trying to be helpful. “But after that date, use away. Trust me, I know it seems like a device for plot convenience. But it’s for your benefit.”

It’s nine days from now. That’s enough time to pack. Enough time to say goodbye.

But how will he tell Will?

“Look, I get it,” Johnson cuts in. He, too, is speaking softly, like they’re both in on some kind of diner conspiracy. “A lot to think about. You don’t want to leave him behind.” Derek shoots a gaze back up to him; he’d forgotten, at least directly, that Johnson knows about him and Will. Somehow. Because why wouldn’t he, with all his other ominous shit. “But remember what I said,” Johnson adds, once he has his attention fully. “Eventual happy ending.”

Derek shakes his head. “Dude,” he mutters, and it hurts to stay it out loud, “you don’t get it. You can’t just say it’ll all be okay. You have no idea.”

Johnson snorts a little. “Tell yourself that, I guess.” He pauses. “You haven’t seen half the shit I have.”

“Fuck off, man.” Johnson may not ever sound malignant or ill-intended, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t  _ seriously  _ freaking Derek out. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Johnson says. He pats the ticket in Derek’s hand again, then says, “Call the number on the back when you’re ready to go. I’ll make sure you get home safe and sound.”

He turns, and with that, it’s gone. Derek sneaks a glance from side to side, but nobody is looking at him. Will is safely lost in his work, across the room. He turns the ticket over.

_ J. Johnson 000-000-0000 _

And, like. What the fuck is he supposed to do with  _ that _ ?

He pockets the ticket.

Johnson is so fucking weird.

*

_ June 1950 _

Will notices that the radio worries Ma.

He’s not sure why. Or maybe he is sure, and he just doesn’t want to think too hard into it. She’ll turn it on during her idle hours, while cooking or cleaning the house’s bottom floor, and she seems to cling to the news reports more than she used to, a lot more than she has since Pa came home from the war. She’s always listening, always attentive, when it’s on.

He and Pa get in from chores late this afternoon, and Ma has dinner nearly ready— but she’s in the living room, dusting off the record player even though it’s not so dirty. When Will walks to get her, her brows are pinched, and she looks distressed. The radio drones quietly nearby, giving the reports in international news.

“Ma?”

Ma looks up. She smiles, but something about it looks forced. “Sorry, Junior,” she says, holding her duster to her chest. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“I, uh.” Will feels he’s interrupted something, but he has no idea what it is. “I just wanted to tell ya we’re in for the night.”

“Perfect.” Ma smiles at him still. He can’t shake that uneasy feeling. He leans to turn the radio off, and watches some of her tension dissolve. “I’ll be right in, alright?”

“Okay.” He pauses in the doorway, and wonders if it’s even his place to ask. He looks over his shoulder. “You alright, Ma?”

“I’m just fine, darling,” she tells him. “Don’t worry yourself.”

This is what everyone always tells him, especially now, in this age of so much uncertainty in the news.  _ Don’t worry.  _ How can he not worry? He feels like something is going to happen, and he has no idea what it is.

“You run on and wash up for dinner,” she adds. “And tell your pa not to pick at that roast. It’s still hot.”

Will laughs a little. Pa is notorious for trying to eat dinner before’s on the table. He’s suffered many a burnt mouth because of it. “I will.”

In the kitchen, Pa is inspecting dinner, but he doesn’t look like he’s trying to pick at it. Will walks up to him and lowers his voice. “Pa?”

He glances over his shoulder. Every day, Will is growing; he thinks he’ll be nearing his height within a few months. “You alright, Junior?”

He takes a long breath, tucks his hands into his pockets, and murmurs, “Ma was looking distressed about the radio again.”

Pa furrows his brow, but says nothing. And for the rest of the evening,  _ no  _ one says anything about it— dinner is fine, and of course the food is delicious, and his parents carry on a pleasant conversation, just like always, but Will cannot shake the feeling that something might be wrong.

It isn’t until later, when he’s gone up to bed, and his parents are still awake downstairs, that he overhears them talking about it. “Mar,” Pa’s voice says, coming faintly up the stairs. Will perches by the top step, and he doesn’t  _ want _ to eavesdrop, but he also wants to  _ know _ . “Turn off that radio, won’tcha?”

Will can hear it, droning very quietly, in the living room. He knows Ma has nightly shows; that’s nothing new. He hears her reply, “What’s the use of turning it off?”

“What’s the use of keeping it on?” Pa asks. His tone goes more gentle, all of a sudden. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Ma says, but it sounds like a lie. “I just… gosh, William, it makes me nervous sometimes—”

“What does?” he asks. “The news?”

She says nothing. Pa continues, “Aw, there’s no use in worrying about the news. Whatever happens is bound to happen; there’s nothing  _ we _ can do about it.”

“But—”

“Hey.  _ Shhh _ .” There’s a pause. “Mar. You know I’m not going anywhere. Not now.”

“With the way they’re talking—”

“We can’t think about that now.” Hearing them dance around this topic, Will feels a little sick to his stomach. He knows, of course, that there’s conflict abroad. That the Soviets are a threat to world peace. That the government at home is considering intervening. But to think that might mean Pa will go away again…

That’s so much for Will.

He’s gotten so used to having his whole family right here at home.

“Mar.” Pa pauses again. Then the radio crackles a little with the static of changing stations. When it lands on clear sound again, it’s faint music, not a news broadcast or a show. Just something like jazz, the gentle stuff his parents love, that he knows was popular when they were growing up.

Will hears Ma ask, “What’s the music for?”

And Pa says, “Dance with me.”

There’s nothing but the music after that. If they speak, their tones are too low to travel up the stairs. Will leaves the top step and retreats into his room. The radio’s music is still a distant sound, but his parents’ dance below feels like something he shouldn’t even try to eavesdrop on.

It’s not the first time, of course. Before the war, Pa always used to turn on music and try to sweep Ma up in a dance— while she was cooking, or holed up during a snowstorm, or during downtime in the evening. Will would laugh when Pa did this; it was a comforting thing, to watch them move around the hardwood floor to the gentle music. Since he got home from the war, he’s done it just the same. He knows Ma missed it, among so many other things, while he was gone.

It means home, for him. His parents put their roots down here, just the way his family members have been doing for so many years.

He just can’t take the thought that Pa might be doing it tonight to comfort her. That there might be something coming.

That he might go away again.

Will has taken this stability for granted.

*

_ August 18th, 1961 _

_ Day 133 In Good Haven _

After work on Friday, when they home, Derek seems a little down.

Will can understand why. He knows he’s been dwelling on the incident at the art store, and before that, what happened at the gas station. He has a hunch they’re both thinking the same thing— time is pulling Derek back toward where he’s meant to be. It’s trying to take him home.

Will knows all this. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, thinking of what that has to mean, for them, eventually.

Summer is almost over.

“My love,” he hums, on his way down the stairs, when he catches Derek hunched over nothing in the living-room, head in his hands. “Are you alright?”

Derek looks up to him, and his smile is gentle. “I’m okay,” he replies, with a nod, and then reaches both arms out in his direction. “I could use a kiss, though.”

Will chuckles a little, and meets him on the couch. He sinks down on the cushion next to him, and presses a soft kiss to his lips. Derek hums, something like approval, and leans against his chest when they pull away.

Will runs his hand through his curls. “Long day?”

Derek shrugs, closing his eyes, his face pressing into Will’s shoulder. “Long week.”

“You finished at Annie’s.” Will pauses. Derek knows this, of course. Kent was singing his praises all evening. Will isn’t even sure he wants to know the answer to his next question, but it’s conversation all the same. “What’s next?”

Derek hums a little. “I’m working on my painting for you.”

“For me,” Will echoes. He sort of had no idea about this. He knows about Derek’s painting, whatever he’s been working away at on the easel in the study-turned-studio. But he didn’t know it was for him. “Der. You don’t have to—”

“I think you’ll like it.” Derek is smiling, which is a good sign, but the way he holds onto him suggests some comfort might be in order. He, at least, doesn’t sound or seem anxious. “But you can’t see until it’s done.”

_ Until it’s done.  _ There’s solace in that phrase. It means he plans to finish it.

It means he won’t go just yet.

What a selfish thought, Will tells himself. He  _ knows _ where Derek has to go.

Tonight, it won’t matter. He won’t let it matter. He gives him a squeeze, and a kiss to the forehead, and then stands, leaving him by himself on the couch, if only for the moment.

He walks to the record player, where he kneels to the crate of records beneath it. Behind him, he hears Derek move on the couch. The springs squeak just a little under his weight, the same way they did when they made love there, a few nights ago, not careful or patient enough to wait to get to the bedroom.

Now, he thumbs through his records, old and new. “What are you doing?” Derek asks, from behind, curiosity in his voice.

“Just looking for something,” Will replies. When he finds the record he’s looking for, near brand-new, from last Christmas, he pulls it out and dusts off its cover, standing up straight.

“For music?” Derek asks.

Will slides the vinyl disc out of the cover. He’s only ever spun it a few times, but it does, after all, have his favorite song on it.

To Derek, he says nothing. Instead, he places the record carefully down on the player, turns it to spinning, and positions the arm. When he drops the needle, there’s a brief crackling, and then, with much more clarity, a jaunty horn and piano sing out into the air.

Will turns on his heel, to find Derek still on the couch, smiling up at him. He crosses back to him and holds out a hand.

“Dance with me?”

_ Somewhere, _ the record sings, _ beyond the sea… _

Derek’s smile widens. He looks from side to side before he stands, taking Will’s hand. “Wow,” he mumbles, stepping close. “Dexy, you’re turning into a romantic.”

Will laughs. He places his hand on his waist, and Derek wraps his arm around his neck. “I’ll change my mind if you make fun of me.”

“Hm.” Derek pretends to consider, then shakes his head, his smile persisting. “I think you’ll go through with it anyway, actually,” he replies.

He’s right.

_ … my lover stands on golden sands, and watches the ships that go sailin’... _

They move to open floor, behind the couch, and then they dance. Will has danced before, he supposes, but it’s been years. Derek moves with ease to the music, which is a surprise for such a clumsy person, but nice all the same. The tune is soft, and the melody, he knows well. He hums a little, pressed close to him, as they dance across the hardwood floor.

“Hey,” Derek mumbles, suddenly, near cheek-to-cheek with him. “This is that song.”

Will closes his eyes, flattening his palm against his back. “What song?”

“The sea song.” There’s a smile in Derek’s voice. “That Kent says you love. It was playing in the diner that one night.”

Will pauses for a second, listens to the band play on the record.

_ Happy we’ll be beyond the sea… _

“It’s my favorite song,” he tells Derek, finally. He leans into him a little more.

“It’s nice,” Derek says.

And, well, yes. It  _ is _ nice. Like this.

Long as it’s been since he’s danced, this is without a doubt the best dance he’s had.

“Der, I was thinking,” he says, when the song is more than halfway over, looking briefly at their feet. Derek is in his blue sneakers, and he’s still in his diner shoes. They move in tandem, to the song’s gentle, steady beat.

“You were thinking,” Derek says, and he looks back up at him.

“Yes.” He pauses, takes a long breath. It’s been on his mind for days, yet it still feels odd to say out loud. “Maybe… maybe we oughta go down to the coast.”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up. He studies him for a second, wordless, and Will wonders if Derek is about to tell him he’s crazy. But all he says is, “The coast?”

“I…” Will can’t even put into words what he wants to say. He hears dream-Derek in his head.  _ Don’t be afraid _ . “I’ve been thinking I oughta face the ocean. And I—” He swallows. Derek just watches him, intently. “I’d like to do it with you. If you’d be alright with that.”

Derek squeezes the hand he’s holding, and turns them on a little angle, as a big instrumental kicks in on the record. “Of course I’d be alright with that,” he replies, and relief surges through Will. “But… are you sure, babe?” Derek pauses. “You and the ocean…”

“Don’t mix, I know.” He takes a deep breath. “Or at least haven’t mixed much recently.”

Derek nods. “Exactly, yeah.”

“But I want to try,” he adds. “I… there’s something telling me it’d be okay, with you there.”

_ I know, beyond a doubt, my heart will lead me there soon… _

“Well,” Derek says, “if you say so, Will. I’d love to.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it.” Derek squeezes his hand, then kisses him lightly. “You and me.”

“You and me,” Will echoes, and then, because he does, adds, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Derek leans close, and presses his cheek to his.

They stay that way, swaying, for the rest of the song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [If you're curious, here's the song they danced to. It's come up in this story before, and you'll see it again.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq995BHejPU&list=OLAK5uy_kWVmcstdo0fn_pTAr72gNVgKoNNTqnYLE&index=2)
> 
> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! The end of this story is fast approaching, but we've got a lot of plot to go before we get there. As Johnson said, some of these scenes may seem like devices for plot convenience, but they're for Derek and Will's benefit. Thank you very much, as always, for reading.


	36. beyond the sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was just sitting here and realized that I usually have my extra update (e.g. the non-Wednesday one) go up on the weekend, and that I didn't post this chapter Saturday or Sunday. So have it today! It's a quick one, but alas, some chapters in a 49-chapter fic must be quicker than others.

_ August 20th, 1961 _

_ Day 135 In Good Haven _

Bar Harbor is only about a twenty-minute drive from Will’s front door.

For years, it’s felt too close for comfort, especially on holidays, when he’s made himself do the trip down for his uncles’ sake. Twenty minutes, a mere few miles, is not enough to separate him from the sea, not nearly enough to keep it away. Or at least that’s what has been true in the recent past.

Before Pa was gone, twenty minutes was  _ too _ far. Too far for his impatient and giddy young self when they were driving down for a visit or for a day, too far when he was waiting for Pa to come home from working on the docks. Too far when he’d fantasize about moving there, working there, some beat job for low pay, but none of the money would matter as long as he was there. He could work with Uncle Tommy and Charlie in the fishery, or he could join Pa in the shipyard. He could even join the Navy, maybe. A real family man. Right in Pa’s footsteps.

The day those soldiers showed up at the farm, all of that disappeared. Evaporated. Will couldn’t even think about those twenty minutes, that handful of miles, that separated him from the very thing that took Pa away.

Today, that changes.

He and Derek get up early, or early for a Sunday, at least, enough to beat the heat. It’s supposed to be sweltering today, if the radio report last night was any indication, which means it’ll be crowded on the coast.

It won’t be a _beach_ _day_ , exactly, at least not the type his parents used to take him on with their extended family back before everything changed. Setting foot in any kind of recreational area together is a recipe for getting in trouble. But he knows Bar Harbor— even so many years later, he knows that town well, can map it out in his mind— and he knows where they can go to just get a quiet glimpse at the coast.

He’s not sure what it’ll take, or how long, or even if he’ll be able to make it there without changing his mind. But something tells him he has to try.

“Are you nervous?” Derek asks him, in the car, as they drive toward the sunrise. His hand is resting on top of his on the gear shift.

And, well. Of course he’s nervous. He’s so nervous. But in his head, all he can hear is the easy voice Derek has been, in his dreams  _ and _ in the real world.

_ Don’t be afraid. _

If Derek has to leave soon, never to return, then Will wants— a little selfishly, but he wants— for him to be with him while he faces this.

He’s not sure he could do it otherwise.

“A little,” he replies. He turns his hand up so he can take Derek’s properly before he adds, “But I have you.”

Derek smiles. “Of course you have me,” he says. Morning light catches him through the windshield. Will wants to memorize the way he looks, sitting next to him like this— to save it, the comfort and warmth of it, for when winter comes and Derek is gone.

It hurts. He’s trying not to think so much about it.

“How long has it actually been?” Derek asks, as they drive under the overpass and cross the town line. Another fifteen minutes and they’ll reach the coast. Will knows where to park.

“Since I was there?” His stomach is in knots, but he’s ready. Something in him knows that he’ll be alright, with Derek by his side. “Well, I’ve been to my uncles’ for holidays a few times. But other than that…”

He racks his brain. He knows, in his heart, when it was. It was two weeks before Ma died. They went out to the coast for a Sunday dinner at Uncle Charlie’s, and they walked by the water for a bit beforehand. Ma was frail and couldn’t stand up well, but she told Will she could use to smell the saltwater, to get some wind on her face.

He tried to talk her out of it. He told her it was too cold. But she thought it’d be good for her. It was maybe just the closeness that she wanted, he thinks— to the water, to the waves. To Pa.

But it didn’t help her. It made her worse. She got pneumonia, and that’s what  _ really _ took her, even though she’d been ill for months prior. In a way, he knows the ocean took both of his parents from him, just in different ways.

_ Don’t be afraid. _

And he isn’t afraid. He’s nervous, he thinks. He’s anticipating. But he isn’t afraid. He wants to be strong, not to fear.

“A long time,” he tells Derek, finally, lifting his eyes to him again before focusing back on the road. “Nine years?”

Derek whistles. “That  _ is _ a long time.” He pauses, then squeezes his hand where he’s still holding it. “I’m proud of you,” he says, and Will is a little shaky. He hopes Derek isn’t saying that too prematurely. “For doing this. I know it’s a lot.”

_ Don’t be afraid _ . Will takes a long breath. “Thank you.”

Derek adds, “I love you.”

Will squeezes his hand back. “I love you, too.”

He doesn’t notice until half a mile outside town that the truck is making an odd noise.

He turns down the radio, although it’s not even playing very loudly, and slows down, like that’ll help him hear better. It’s coming from under the windshield, and now that he’s looking, something in there might be steaming, too. The smoke is white, not black, which, thank God, but he should still take a look at it.

“There’s something off under the hood,” he tells Derek, who arches an eyebrow and leans forward in his seat.

“Like… something’s wrong with the truck?”

“I’m not sure.” He pauses, then turns on his right-side blinker. The road is wide, and they’re on a straightaway, so it’s not quite like pulling over will be a disturbance to other drivers. Not to mention there’s no one on the road in the first place. It’s too early, and they’re too far in the middle of nowhere. “But I oughta take a look at it.”

He feels Derek tense a little, from where he’s holding his hand, and gives him a squeeze he hopes is reassuring. “I’ll only be a minute,” he tells him. “Promise.”

“What if something’s wrong?” There’s a twinge of something nervous in Derek’s voice. Will knows that indication well, by now. Derek has a few tells, like when he fidgets his hands, or when his eyes dart around a lot, or when that alertness registers in his voice. Though he’s only seen him devolve into full-fledged panic a handful of times, the summer has taught Will how to ease him through the more mild forms of anxiety.

“Well, if something’s wrong with the truck,” Will reasons, in a gentle voice, still holding tight to his hand, “then we go home.”

“But…” Derek looks around, as he pulls the truck to a slow stop on the side of the road. “We’ve come this far.”

“It’s not so far to get back to my house, Der.” Will puts the truck in park, letting go of his hand for just a second. “And safety’s more important.”

If he’s being honest, the thought of the truck acting up  _ does _ worry him a little, if for no other reason than it’s Pa’s and he’s done his very best to keep it in tip-top shape all these years. There’s no changing the fact that it’s sixteen years old. Vehicles aren’t always  _ that _ durable. Up to now, Will has counted himself as lucky.

The truck is fine, though. He’s sure of it.

He rests his hand on top of Derek’s, across the console, and meets his eyes. So far, he doesn’t  _ look _ anxious. Just maybe sounds it. “Would you like to come outside with me, so we stay together?”

Derek nods. “Please.”

So they round the front of the truck, and Will pops the hood. If the temperature now is any indication, it’s going to be a scorcher today.

He peers into the inner workings of his truck. The steam is coming from the engine. Will frowns. Calling for a tow was not on his list of things to do today, especially not when he and Derek are alone together in a car. How will he explain that to a towing company?

He guesses they do still have that old musical duo story from a few weeks ago.

“Der,” he hums. “Couldja grab me my toolbox from the trunk, please?”

Derek smiles, just a little. “You have your toolbox in the trunk?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “Always either there or in the barn.”

Derek laughs, then starts around toward the bed of the truck. “You’re always prepared,” he remarks. “Like a Boy Scout.”

And then, for a split second, Will loses sight of him beyond the hood.

*

This time, it only happens for a moment.

One second, Derek is walking around the corner of the red truck bed. The next second, he blinks, and the truck isn’t there.

There’s a stoplight hanging over the road— just a yellow blinker— that wasn’t there before, and Will’s truck, along with Will himself, has vanished. It’s only himself and the road, and the light’s blinking indifference.

Derek breathes in.

Breathes out.

Closes his eyes.

The truck returns.

*

Derek re-emerges, but he doesn’t have the toolbox. The unsettled look in his eyes has intensified, and Will notices, as he approaches him again, that the engine has stopped steaming. That’s a good sign.

But Derek’s worry might not be. “You okay, my love?”

He’s pale. “I just warped again.”

“Oh.” Will’s stomach turns. “Der. Just now?”

Derek nods. He looks around, tucking his hands into his pockets, like he thinks he’s being watched. “Just for a few seconds.”

Will straightens, pulling down the hood and closing it. “How could you tell?”

“Because you were gone,” he replies. “And the truck was, and there was, like, a stoplight, and—”

“Oh, baby— okay, okay.” There’s no way he’s taking him any further past the town line if this is happening right here. The ocean doesn’t matter, in this moment. He has to get him home, where it’s safe.

At least. Safe from the time-shifting. The rest, they don’t have to think about right now. “C’mon.” He walks back to the driver’s side door. “I can make it home without figuring this out. We’ll head back.”

“But— Will.” There’s something like urgency in his expression, across the hood of the truck. It glints in the sunrise, this perfect red paint job that Will has kept so clean for so many years. “The ocean?”

“Can wait,” Will replies, without hesitating. “We’re going home.”

*

“Y’know, babe,” Derek says, when they’re safe back in Good Haven, sitting in the grass by the pond. “Even if, uh… even if you can’t get there with me, I think you should still go.”

Will looks to him. It’s warm in the sun, and the ducks that were babies on their first date are swimming across the water, fully grown.

“To Bar Harbor,” he replies, but it’s not a question. It’s a conclusion.

Derek nods. He’s leaning comfortably against him, head tucked backwards into his shoulder, as they lounge together. Will could take a nap like this. He’s never really been the napping type.

“You should,” Derek says. “I know you were ready to go today. I’m sorry I—”

“Please,” Will interrupts, because if he thinks for a second he should be sorry about any of this, then he’s so very wrong. “Derek. Don’t be sorry.”

Derek pauses, then reaches for his hand, where it’s resting against his shoulder. He laces his fingers in his, then plants a few kisses to the top of his palm. He’s aiming for freckles, most likely. In intimate and casual encounters alike, Derek always pays special attention to his freckles.

Will used to hate them, the way they’re littered and clustered all over his body, but now, because of him, he thinks maybe they aren’t so bad.

“It’s getting worse,” Derek says, and though it hurts Will somewhere inside to think about, he knows beyond a doubt that he’s right.

“I know.” He pauses, and Derek peppers another string of kisses to his hand. Then he presses his palm right to his cheek, and Will cups his jaw in that same hand, trying his best to memorize the way it feels.

“I’m not done with my painting yet,” Derek adds. “It’s for you.”

“For me?” Will knows that he’s been working on something, up in the studio, or, well, Pa’s study that now also serves as Derek’s studio. But he hasn’t been inside to see what it is, mostly because Derek has this air of secrecy around it. Whenever Will has asked what it is he’s working on behind the easel, Derek has given him a little grin and shrugged.  _ It’s a surprise _ . “I didn’t know it was for me.”

“Well, duh,” Derek replies. He scoots up a little, so they’re sitting at eye level, and adds, “Who else would it be for?”

“Um.” Will pauses a second, but he has no idea. “Yourself?”

“ _ Pff _ ,” Derek says. “Who makes a painting for themselves?”

“I… don’t know.” He meets his eyes. They’re that late-summer green, doused in golden sunlight.  _ God _ , he thinks he’s been in love with those eyes since the day he first looked into them. “You’re the first artist I’ve been in close contact with.”

A grin crosses Derek’s face, the kind that indicates a wise-guy remark (or as he would call it, a chirp) is on its way. “Close contact, huh?” he asks, then tickles at Will’s ribcage.

Will yelps, then laughs, retracting from that touch only because it genuinely does tickle. “Hey!”

“Close contact,” he repeats, still grabbing for him, and smiling openly now. “How very  _ scandalous _ , babe.”

“We  _ are _ scandalous,” Will replies, and Derek quits the mission to tickle him.

When he meets his eyes, he’s still smiling, and both his hands are outstretched tentatively. Will takes them, and waits for him to speak. “Ch’yeah,” Derek says, finally. “I guess we really are, huh.”

“I don’t mind it,” Will adds, in haste— although how many times have they been over the nature of this relationship, and the fact that neither of them minds it in all its taboo?

“Neither do I.” Derek’s smile widens. “I like it, actually.”

Will chuckles. “Me, too,” he tells him, and then, “C’mere, baby.”

He pulls him close to kiss him slowly. It’s a kiss that feels familiar, like they’ve been doing it for years.

Will forgets, sometimes, that it  _ hasn’t _ been years. That it’s only been a summer. That things aren’t different. That Derek can’t stay.

What he wouldn’t give to have him forever.

“You know what I  _ could _ do,” Derek says, between kisses. Will hums to acknowledge his words, too dazed by the actual act of kissing him to focus much on responding. Derek continues, “I could paint you the ocean.”

Something flutters in Will’s chest. He looks him in the eye again. Derek looks sincere, and so tender. “If you wanted,” he adds. “If you’d— like that?”

“I would  _ love _ that,” Will replies, because of course he would. That’s a sea he could stand to look at for a long time.

Derek smiles, then nods. “Okay,” he says. “I can do that, babe.” He kisses him again, and Will gives himself up to the feeling.

Today may not have brought him where he thought he would go. He was prepared to go, but the sea can wait. He’s not sure if, without Derek by his side, he’ll get to Bar Harbor anytime soon.

But  _ with _ him, he thinks that’s okay. If, today, by the pond, is all he has, then that’s what he’ll take. He’ll hold this close, keep it near his heart.

As long as he can.

He’d like forever.


	37. we could be

_ August 23rd, 1961 _

_ Day 138 In Good Haven _

In the middle of the week, laying in a warm afterglow in Will’s room, Derek takes the plunge.

He’s tracing freckles up and down the place where Will’s shoulder blade meets his back. Will himself is curled around him, naked save the sheets they’re both relatively tangled in. He’s shaky, Derek knows, and a little worn-out from what just transpired. They’ve cleaned up, and Derek has engaged him in all their usual aftercare practices, like a cool cloth to the stomach and some lotion and, most importantly, a place in his arms to snuggle.

Sex in the middle of the day is… weird, he knows. Or at least out of the ordinary. He and Will don’t do it all the time; today is a first, in fact. Will got home from his shift at Annie’s, and Derek was painting, and while Will changed out of his work clothes, Derek left the little makeshift studio and ambled across the hall to interview him about his morning. Amidst that conversation, with half-dressed Will, he somehow found a way to get him into bed.

Look. He isn’t complaining. Not even a little. It’s just like a lunch break. Except instead of lunch…

Well, anyway. Now they’re here.

Will looks like he could fall asleep, which would be an extremely out-of-character thing for him to do at 12:41 PM on a random Wednesday. But his arm is draped across Derek’s chest, and his legs are tangled with his somewhere beneath the white sheet, and his eyes are closed as his cheek presses under his shoulder. His skin flushes everywhere, even a solid fifteen minutes removed from the actual act, and his hair is a complete disaster. He cuts it himself, Derek now knows, one of several domestic habits he’s observed over these weeks together, and it’s long lately, just like Derek’s own.

Actually, now that he’s looking at him, he might already  _ be _ asleep. He scratches just gently at his shoulder blade to test. “Will,” he hums, in a soft voice. “Are you still with me?”

Will lets out a noise that signals his consciousness. It’s low in his throat, and it’s somehow sexy and very cute all at once. He gives a little nod to accentuate it, but that’s all he gives. He cuddles closer to his chest.

Derek drops a kiss to the top of his head. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Just checking.”

Will’s lips press together in the tiniest smile.

And Derek is just, like. Jesus actual Christ, he is  _ so _ in love with this man. He has been for awhile now, and it’s only since they started saying it to each other that Derek has actually let himself think about it. Except the more he thinks about it, the worse his whole entire predicament gets, because he  _ is _ in love. He’s so very, very in love. He’s in love with his person, with the way he acts, with all his old-fashioned mannerisms, and sure, yeah, with his body, too, but mostly just with  _ him _ . His Will.

He knows he’d never find anyone quite like him in any century.

But Will is  _ here _ ; his whole life is here, and up to this moment laying in bed Derek has never fully considered what it might be like to have a life with Will in another time. In his own time, where they’d be so much safer, so much more able to  _ do _ things together. So much more well-supported.

Like loving him, it’s a thing he hasn’t let himself consider, for fear it’s something he can’t have.

But this… this is much more solidly out of the question than loving him. Loving him is easy. Asking him to change his whole life for him would not be.

But Derek has to leave either way, so… can it hurt to ask?

He thumbs at a patch of freckles next to Will’s spine. “Babe,” he starts, still speaking softly.

Will hums again, but this time it sounds like a question. “Mm?” He doesn’t open his eyes.

Derek takes a long breath, gluing his eyes to the ceiling for a second. Will’s bedroom is bathed in bright midday light. There are pieces of himself all over it, like his clothes in the closet, his shoes by the door, even his hair scarf on the dresser next to Will’s comb.

_ God _ , what he wouldn’t give to share a life with him.

He looks to the ceiling again. The rafters of this house seem to shift and creak, like they have a mind of their own. He knows Will has long since imagined that the ghosts of his family inhabit it, which, Derek can’t lie, is a creepy fucking thought, actually. Especially when you’re laying in his bed thinking about it after you just had sex with him. But it comforts Will, and he knows that.

Another reason, among the millions, that he knows Will would never leave this behind.

“Der?” When he looks back down to him, Will has cracked open one amber eye.

He didn’t finish his thought, he realizes. He takes a deep breath, looking down at him, and then asks, “Can I say something crazy?”

Will nods. He closes his eyes again, resting his face back against his chest. “Go ahead.”

He looks  _ so _ at ease.

Derek holds him close, like it’ll change the answer he knows Will will give when he says what he’s thinking.

He says it anyway. “Come home with me.”

Will is silent, for a moment. His eyes kind of squint, even though they’re still closed, and when he opens them again to look up at him, he knits his brows. The wrinkle between them appears. Derek must have written, like, three or four haiku just about that wrinkle back during the courting-slash-pestering at Annie’s phase.

Now, holding him close in bed four months later, he tries to read that expression. Will doesn’t look  _ upset _ . He looks… confused.

“I don’t understand,” he says, finally, which is at least better than  _ Derek, you’re crazy, and while I’m thinking of it, you should just leave right now. _

But he  _ does _ sound crazy, and he knows it. He continues anyway, because it’s not the first crazy idea he’s ever had. “To New York,” he tells him. “You could move into my apartment.”

Will’s wrinkle gets wrinklier, as his confusion seems to intensify. He shakes his head a little, at first slowly. “But… your apartment doesn’t exist yet.”

“I mean to the future, babe.” Fuck, he sounds like an idiot, doesn’t he? “You could come with me to the future.”

Will looks around the room, like he’s taking stock of everything he can’t leave. All he actually says after that is, “But I can’t time-travel.”

Which, okay. Yeah. That’s, like, problem number one of a list of many of them with this completely idealized fantasy. Derek sighs, and nods. “I… yeah. I guess. But you don’t  _ know _ that.”

“I’ve… never  _ been _ able to.” Will pauses, then reaches forward, brushing a clump of his curls away from his forehead. For a moment, he’s quiet as he does this, moving his warm, calloused hand to the side of his face. “And… this house, my love. The farm. My job. I’ve got—”

“Responsibilities, I know.” Derek winces a little, because all of this was factual, of course, before he started this conversation. He was just choosing to ignore it. “But I— I could get you a job. I could keep you safe. We could come up here, even.” He pauses. Will’s eyes are still not exactly upset, but there’s so much uncertainty in them. “It’s like I told you,” he says. “There’s a place for us.”

Will closes his eyes and sighs.

“There  _ is _ ,” he insists, because of course there is; there are a million places he knows where love like this would be easier, and it’s so unfair, so fucking unfair, that he and Will won’t ever get to experience that together. And not only that, but  _ Will _ , on his own— there’s so much he won’t see, or if he lives to see it, he’ll be so old that he won’t get to fully take advantage of it, these rights and freedoms that should have always been his, should have always belonged to people like him and people like Derek and people like Kent, but the world is so fucked-up right now that they don’t get to see it, they don’t get to know what Derek knows—

But there’s a place for them. There will be, and there is, and he  _ hates _ that the world hasn’t shown that to Will yet. “We’d be safe there,” he whispers. “Babe, we could— we could do anything. We could walk down the road, just us, and I could hold your hand, and no one would care.”

Will chuckles a little, eyes still closed. “I find that hard to believe.”

“ _ Will _ . William.” Will’s eyes open for this. Derek has never seen anything more beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. “You have to believe me. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“Well, I— I believe you,” Will whispers. He pauses, then shakes his head. “I just know it’s something I can’t have.”

“But you  _ could _ have it. With me.” Derek pulls him a little closer, then falls onto his side next to him, wrapping his arms clean around his waist. “Think about it. We could— live together, without hiding it. I could introduce you to my best friend.” Chowder would love him. “I could—” He almost laughs. “I could kiss you! In public. Right in the middle of a bunch of people. And, like, sure, people might  _ judge _ us, the more ignorant ones, but— but babe, no one’s getting thrown in jail for something like that in the world I know.”

Will’s hand dances around his stomach, then his arm hooks around his waist. He’s quiet, but he’s listening. His eyes stay on him, and he clings close to his body.

“We could do all that,” he whispers. What he thinks, but doesn’t say, is  _ we could get married _ . That seems far off, but not unthinkable. “Will. We could have that. If I got you home with me.”

Will takes a very long breath. He thumbs at Derek’s jawbone, and when he smiles, it’s the most bittersweet thing Derek has ever seen.

“Der,” he whispers. “I can’t.”

Derek is so happy, just laying here with him, but all at once he feels like he could cry.

He knows. He gets it. This has never been something that’ll last. Johnson’s bus ticket, if he’s not just fucking with him, will be valid in a few days, and Derek is nearly done the painting he’s been working on for Will. After that… he knows he has no real reason to stay here.

Except, of course, for the beautiful, red-haired reason laying next to him.

Will would be eighty-six years old, back in 2021. If he’s alive— which, Derek knows, he  _ could _ be, but what a weird way to meet him again— if he’s alive, who knows where he’ll be, or what he’ll be doing.

He wants to regret getting himself into this, but he can’t for a second bring himself to regret any moment of this summer with Will.

It’s love like he’s never known. If he  _ has _ been in love before, this is something so very different, so much more precious.

He wants to keep making his case to him, but the sadness in Will’s eyes stops him. He knows there’s nothing he can say.

“I can’t even leave this time period,” Will adds.

Derek wants to tear time to pieces.

It’s brought him the greatest and most difficult thing, all in the same old-fashioned, standoffish, hardworking,  _ wonderful _ man.

“I love you,” Will says, suddenly. “I think I’ll always love you.”

“ _ God _ , babe,” Derek whispers, even though he’s coming apart inside. “So will I.”

Will kisses him. It feels like an apology, but Derek treasures it all the same.

It is the middle of the day on a Wednesday, and he’s never so badly wanted a moment to last forever.

*

_ we are worlds apart _

_ but in your arms, i could stay _

_ for the longest time _


	38. i'll remember april

_ December 1941 _

Pa is leaving tomorrow, and Will knows it.

He’s six years old, but he’s seen the signs. Ma has looked worried when she sits by the radio, and his uncles and his grandmother have been speaking in hushed tones, where they think his young ears won’t pick them up. Pa has been more upfront about it, talking about how he’ll go sailing, how this is the kind of thing he was ready for when he  _ joined _ the Navy, how it’s the right thing to do.

His uncles, too, are going, but they’re not leaving tomorrow. Pa’s bag is on the floor in his parents’ bedroom; he can see it when he peers around the corner. His bus ticket rests on top of it. It’s yellow, an ugly shade of the color. Will doesn’t like looking at that little paper. He knows what it means.

“You alright, Junior?”

Pa is coming up the stairs, taking them two by two with his long legs. Will worries, for a second, that he’s going to get in trouble for sneaking around. The only thing he’s doing is looking, but even if Pa is upset that he  _ was _ looking in his room, he doesn’t say so. All he does is smile down at him.

“Pa?” he asks. “Are you coming home?”

Pa kneels in front of him, opens his arms. “Aw, c’mere,” he says, and Will falls into the embrace readily. He clings to his father, like it’ll keep him here, on dry land. Will loves the water, but he loves Pa more. He wants him to come home, when he’s done with what he’s calling the ‘good fight’.

“Of course I am,” Pa assures him, ruffling his hair. It’s the very same color as his, and always has been. Will has been every bit his father’s son since he was an infant, hair to ears to freckles. He hopes he’ll be big and strong like him one day, too. “And you’ve gotta look after your ma and Grandma in the meantime, alright? Can you do that for me?”

Will nods. He’ll do anything Pa asks of him. “Uh-huh,” he says, into the shoulder of his shirt.

“Good man.” Pa’s smile is huge. He stands, lifting him with him as he does. “Now, c’mon. Let’s go see what Ma’s cooking up for supper.”

Will’s gaze lingers on Pa’s bus ticket and bag, which are still in the middle of his parents’ bedroom floor, as Pa walks him toward the stairs. Hanging over his shoulder, that bag will be the last thing he sees when Pa gets on the bus tomorrow.

A few days later, he’ll ask Ma the same question, eating his oatmeal for breakfast while it snows outside.  _ Is Pa coming home, Ma? _

Ma will smile, a hopeful but bittersweet thing, and ruffle his hair just the same way Pa did.  _ Oh, darling, we can hope. _

What Will doesn’t know— what he won’t know for years— is that Pa  _ will _ come home, this time. But that doesn’t change the fact that he hates saying goodbye.

*

_ August 26th, 1961 _

_ Day 141 In Good Haven _

After dinner is painting time, but the painting isn’t done.

Derek was hoping he’d finish it by today, but he hasn’t. Sticking his paintbrush behind his ear, he sits back on his stool to look at the canvas stretched before him, and he knows he won’t finish tonight. Even after all the work he’s put in over the past few days, it’s just not where he wants it.

It’s a nice scene, all the same. He’s painted the farm, the way it looks from his studio window— well, the study window, but it’s his studio too, has been for weeks; it’s all the same anyway. The barn is in the distance, with its chipped paint job and worn-down beams, a steady thing that’s stood for decades, and next to it, the fence where the cows pasture. He even put the cows  _ in _ the painting, and a few of the chickens, too, little blotches of paint by the barn.

Will is in the painting, but you have to squint to see him. He’s just out there in the yard, bent over his garden, a little figure like this is  _ Where’s Waldo _ except it’s  _ Where’s Will _ . The rest is green all around, and a bright blue in the sky, all the shades of summer Derek has come to know as he spent it here.

It’s just… not  _ quite _ done. He still needs to add some touches.

He has another piece of canvas, and he remembers his promise to paint Will the ocean. He should start on that, maybe, right after he finishes this. It can’t take him  _ so _ long, can it? He has the time.

Or he, like. Wants to have the time.

Right now, Will is outside, doing night feeds, or at least that’s where he was when Derek had eyes on him out the window a few minutes ago. He wonders if he’s come in. He might have missed the sound of him coming up the stairs, in his artistic fog.

The sun is down, and Derek works by lamplight. He likes this study, has grown fond of it, in the weeks since Will put him up in here for his creative endeavors. His notebooks are all on the desk, and his sketching pencils are laid out around a few blank pieces of paper he was messing around on earlier today. His bag hangs on a hook by the door.

He hears a door close downstairs somewhere— the bathroom door, maybe? Will must be back in, by now. Any minute he’ll come to whisk him away to the couch for some wind-down snuggles, and honestly, Derek could use them. But until then, he’ll keep painting.

He  _ has _ to finish this for Will.

He pulls his paintbrush back out from its resting spot at his ear, and wonders for a second if he’s accidentally gotten paint in his hair. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it’s such a bitch to wash out.

Well, whatever. He’ll figure it out eventually. For now, he touches up a cloud in the upper left corner of his canvas, giving it a little silver lining.

A minute more and there are footfalls coming up the stairs— socked ones, which mean Will is out of his work boots for the night. Derek smiles to himself, and waits for his appearance in the door.

“Der?” When he rounds the corner, he looks a little urgent, and there’s something in his hand. “I think you left something in your pocket.”

“Huh?” He stops painting and squints at what he’s holding. It’s a small, yellow piece of paper. Like… a telegram? Or—

“I was doing laundry,” Will explains. “This fell out of your jeans.” He’s frowning, a little, but mostly he just looks sad. And then, all at once, it falls into place.

That’s the bus ticket. From Johnson.

The bus ticket he didn’t tell Will he’d been given.

_ Oh, fuck. _

“Uh…” He puts his paintbrush down. “That’s, um. Johnson gave that to me.” He pauses, and cringes at himself. “At the diner?”

Will turns it over, then looks up at him. There isn’t an ounce of anger in his expression. His face is a little shaded in the lamplight, and his brows are turned in on each other.

“It’s a ticket home,” he concludes.

Derek nods. It’s a painful thing, facing him head-on, but what is he going to do, deny it?

It’s not even that he ever intended to  _ hide _ it from Will. Just that he wasn’t sure how to begin to bring it up.

“It’s dated tomorrow,” Will adds.

“I… yeah.” Derek knows this, has known it for eight days, but has been trying not to think about it. “But it’s— like, he said it’s valid anytime  _ after _ tomorrow. Just not before it.”

Will takes a little breath, then puts the ticket down, neatly, on top of Derek’s stack of notebooks on the desk. He tucks both his huge hands into his pockets; he’s still in his barn clothes, but sock-footed, just like Derek thought.

He hangs his head. “You’re leaving.”

His voice is dejected, and it makes Derek’s stomach hurt. He stands, leaving the canvas and the wet paint. “I, like.” He pauses, and stops a few feet away from him. He wants to touch him, to comfort him, but he’s the one who caused this hurt in the first place. “Babe, I didn’t— I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“It’s okay,” Will replies. “It’s… I understand.”

But the brokenness in his voice.  _ Fuck _ . Derek steps forward. He reaches for his hand.

Will pulls backward.

“Will,” he says. “I…”

But what words are there for this? For this, that they both knew was coming? They’ve had so long to prepare to say goodbye.

Derek looks sideways, to the ticket, where Will placed it down atop his books. It’s front-side up, and he can see the note in the corner.

“It’s valid  _ from _ tomorrow,” he says, even though he already told him that. “So I don’t have to, like. I don’t have to leave tomorrow specifically.”

Will taps one socked foot on the floor for a second, then sighs and shakes his head. His voice is still low, still beaten. “Give it a rest, Der.”

“Give what a rest?”

“Just…” Will shakes his head again. Derek swears he hears him chuckle a little. “What’s the use of putting it off?” he asks. “We both knew this was coming.”

“But I—”  _ I love you.  _ “I haven’t finished the painting yet.”

Now Will actually  _ does _ laugh. It’s a sad sound, nothing like the big, full laugh Derek has gotten so used to. The laugh that fills him with pride every time he gets it out of him.

This is barely a laugh at all. It’s something so much more heartbroken.

“What does that matter?” Will lifts his eyes to his, and he still doesn’t look angry in the slightest, but somehow his lack of anger is worse. “You have to go back home.”

“Will.” Derek’s stomach hurts. “I—”  _ God, I love you.  _ “I don’t know how to leave you.”

“You can’t  _ stay _ , Der.”

“I  _ know _ that—”

“And I think—” Will runs his hands through his hair, then lowers his eyes again. “I mean, what’s the use of putting it off any longer.”

_ God _ , he hates this feeling.

He looks at him across the threshold to the studio, and realizes in Will’s dejected expression, this resolved sadness, that there isn’t a question for him anymore. This is something he’s thought about— and the bus ticket must have solidified it. And yeah, he  _ knows _ , he understands that this was really the only option that was ever feasible, but—

But it just. It hurts.

“You want me to leave,” he says, finally, softly, while Will won’t look back at him.

“It’s not that,” Will replies. “I never—  _ God _ , Der. I’ve  _ never _ wanted you to leave.” He lifts his face again. Derek isn’t sure if he prefers his lowered head, or this eye contact that sears him somewhere inside. “But I know what you need to do. And you do, too.”

“We could—” It’s like grappling for strings, buying time. “I could stay a few more days. I could finish the painting, and we could—”  _ We could say goodbye. _

“ _ Derek _ ,” Will says, forcefully. “I don’t care about the painting.”

There’s a pang in Derek’s stomach. He loses his words again.

“You can’t stay here,” Will continues, “and I can’t just let you wait around here and put it off any longer. Not only is it not safe, but you have a  _ life _ back home, Der, and I can’t— there’s no use in me taking that away from you any longer.”

He doesn’t like this. “Will.”

“Don’t— don’t ‘Will’ me.” He holds up his hands like he’s trying to shield himself, but not from touch. Maybe just from the way it all feels. Derek would like to block that part out, too. “You know it, too.”

And he does. He always has.

But he loves him, and he doesn’t know how he’ll ever stop doing that.

“I know,” he breathes, finally, and he wishes he could say more. “I— I know you’re right. I just—”

“You just nothing,” Will says, with a shake of his head. “Derek, you  _ have _ to. If you don’t get a move on while you can, you’ll just— you’ll keep putting it off. And—”

_ Get a move on.  _ He hates the way that sounds. “Will, I  _ get _ it, okay?” He can’t take this, this lecturing, or even if it’s not intended as a lecture, he can’t take whatever it is. He wants it to stop. “I just— like, I know, alright, I know I can’t be here, I just—” He lets out a long breath. He isn’t anxious, but somehow this is worse than being anxious. “I don’t know. I— I have to figure out how to go.”

“Derek, there’s nothing to figure out.” Will gestures to the bus ticket. “It’s right there, on paper. Johnson can help you.”

The room falls quiet, and the house right along with it. Will is indifferent— or maybe not entirely indifferent, but unflinching, in the doorway, resolved to his stance. Derek  _ knows _ , with everything in him, that leaving is what’s best. That he should just. Get a move on.

But.

When he looks at Will, it’s just.

How did he manage to get himself into this?

He reaches for him, tentatively this time, and Will, thank God, doesn’t pull back. “Come with me,” Derek whispers, like it’ll change a damn thing.

“Derek.” Will’s eyes are so sad. “I  _ can’t _ .”

Derek squeezes his hand, then takes the other one. It’s the closest they get, for the moment, but it’s enough. Anything would be enough. “We could be together,” he tells him. “You and me.”

“ _ Derek _ .” His voice is strained, and it’s like watching his heart break right in front of him. “I have responsibilities here. I can’t just up and leave them.”

That strikes a chord, somewhere in Derek, and brings back things Will said months ago. Months ago, when things were different, and when the distance between them was always a diner bartop, when he thought Will hated him. When Will was  _ trying _ to hate him.

“Responsibilities,” he echoes, quietly. “Right. Because you don’t think I have responsibilities.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Will whispers. “But I— who can just leave their life behind?”

“I did,” he replies, and all at once, he feels he’s finding his words. “It was an accident, but Jesus, Will, I wouldn’t change a second of it, okay? Because it brought me to you. I’d travel to  _ any _ time if it meant I could have you, and I  _ know  _ I can’t stay, but that doesn’t mean I regret what I missed in my own life because of it.”

Will’s voice is strained. “I don’t know why you stayed.”

“Why I stayed?” He squeezes his hands, because he is very scared, all of a sudden, that Will might let go. “Will, I  _ love _ you, okay? I fell in love with you. How’s that for an explanation?”

Will swallows. He looks like he could be close to tears, but that’s a fact Derek is  _ very _ much not willing to face head-on, because it’ll invoke the same thing in himself.

He  _ wants _ to cry. But he shouldn’t.

“I love you, too,” Will whispers, and then he really does let go of his hands.

Derek feels the space between them widen, but neither of them steps back. His heart is pounding, and he feels so much like crying, and all he wants is  _ Will _ . He wants to hold him and find a way never to let go.

He is  _ so _ tired of dreaming of things he can’t have.

“My ticket,” he says, and his voice is only halfway there. “It isn’t valid until tomorrow.”

Will meets his eyes. He’s tucked his hands into his pockets, but now he draws one back out. “Yes,” he replies, then pauses a moment. Derek thinks he might say more, but he doesn’t.

They lock eyes, and Derek knows, suddenly, what they both want.

_ One last time. _

He steps forward at the same time Will does, and takes his face in his hands. When they kiss, it’s this crushing thing, urgent and passionate, coming together the way they first did, over that bartop at Annie’s. Will holds him by the waist, and it turns into more than one, and he feels himself being pressed gently to the wall.

When they pull away, he thinks Will is going to speak, but he doesn’t. He gives him a look Derek now knows well, but it’s so much sadder than he’s ever seen it.

Still, he knows what it means. Derek nods. He kisses him again.

They fall into bed not so long later, clothes shed to the floor, bodies fitting together the way they know well by now.

Derek holds tight, feels him so close, revels in the sound of Will’s pleading voice.

He tries, with every touch and each kiss, to imprint enough  _ I love you _ s into him to last him the rest of his life.

*

He doesn’t expect that they’ll fall asleep, after that.

He thinks they’ll get up. That Will will see him out the door. But when they’ve finished, and once he’s cleaned him up, Will falls to the mattress in a gentle slump, winding his arms around Derek’s neck to pull him down with him. Derek lands with his face in the pillow, and his body wrapped around him. He’s hot all over, still coming down from the high, but all at once it occurs to him that he’s been crying.

He can feel it, because his cheeks are wet. He must have lost himself somewhere around the breaking point, and didn’t realize. He wonders if Will knows.

If he does, he doesn’t say so. All Will does is exhale and hold him close.

“Babe,” he whispers, against his shoulder. Will is a little sweaty, and his skin is hot. “Are you sleeping?”

Will’s voice is heavy. “I’m tired,” he replies, plainly, and huddles into Derek’s chest without elaborating.

Derek is tired, too.

So tired. He closes his eyes, and wonders if sleep will come. The bedroom is dark, and Will’s weight is heavy against him, and he could just… rest.

But then a small problem arises: he can’t.

He dozes, maybe, just laying there with him. But even as Will’s body relaxes in his arms, and his breaths even out to the steady ones that indicate sleep, and even as he feels minutes turning into hours— sleep doesn’t come.

It’s too much. Laying here with him like this, knowing what’s coming, the fact that Will will have him leave in the morning, it’s just. It’s too much. It’s like having him, while knowing Will is slipping right through his fingers, and after this night he’ll never have him again.

He lets the hours roll by. Will’s alarm clock shows him when midnight passes. Will doesn’t stir. If anything, he presses closer to him in his sleep, his naked body intertwined with Derek’s own. They fit so well; they always have.

But Derek can’t do this. Will was right. He can’t stay.

He has to block out this hurt, before it consumes him, and just. Take the plunge.

He presses his nose into Will’s hair, kisses the top of his head, and then, very gently, unwinds him and rolls out of bed.

With his feet flat on the hardwood floor, he sighs. Out of bed, without Will pressed against him, he is very, very cold.

He’s going to have to get used to that.

He dresses, and then he packs. He gathers his things from around the house in the dark, unceremoniously and without incident, tucking them into the overnight bag that has been vacant and unused in Will’s closet since he moved in with him. It takes him all of thirty minutes, mostly because his stuff is everywhere.

He’s imprinted himself on this old house. It’s time to go.

He thinks all of this will wake Will, but it doesn’t. He intends, maybe, to get back into bed when it’s all said and done, but by the time his packing is over, it’s four in the morning. Will’s alarm will go off in an hour and a half, and that’s. It’s not enough time to fall back asleep.

He has to just go.

He wipes the tear tracks, hours old, from his face, and stands over the bed. The room is dark, and Will is still asleep. He has no idea how he’s slept through all of this, but he’s almost glad he has. He’s not sure how easy it would have been to pack with Will awake.

Will is peaceful, wrapped in the sheets. Derek notices his green hat is hanging on the bedpost; it’s practically been Will’s these past few months.

He takes it, and puts it on his own head, but on Will’s nightstand, he leaves one of his notebooks, the one with blue flowers on the pages. It’s full of drawings and poems, written through the summer. He can’t publish this, and wouldn’t. He’d rather Will have it.

It’s a little piece of himself. He drew the both of them, in the back couple of pages, and now he writes on the very last page.

_ i love you, anywhere and anytime _

_ you & me _

_ \- d _

With that, he sets it gently on the small stand. He barely has a voice, and he thinks if he tries to speak, he might lose the fight to the tears he’s been trying to suppress for days. So when he says, “I love you,” it comes out half a whisper. He leans down and kisses his forehead.

Will still doesn’t stir. He’s just asleep, beautiful, freckles and muscle in the sheets shadowed by the low light.

Derek pulls off of him, lets out a shaky breath, and picks up his bags. He leaves without ceremony, without flourish, and pads his careful way down the stairs. It’s dark on the bottom floor, and he flicks on the lamp next to the phone in the living-room. There’s a gentle draft at his back, and he wonders suddenly if Will’s parents’ ghosts are glad to see him go.

He thinks they probably are.

He pulls the bus ticket from his pocket and dials.

Once the operator connects him, it rings three times. God, he’s even used to operators.

“John Johnson,” says the voice on the other end.

“Hey.” Derek pauses. “Uh. I’m sorry it’s so early.”

“No need to apologize,” Johnson replies. “Ready to go?”

Derek isn’t.

But he has to be. So he nods, then speaks into the receiver. “Yeah.” He sighs. Will is asleep above him, and he has no idea, and soon they’ll be worlds apart with no way to be together.

“I’m ready,” he says.

Johnson  _ laughs _ , for some reason. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friends: I have promised you, and continue to promise you, a happy ending to this story. Bear with me now while we enter the necessary Angsty Part of the story in order to make this happy ending possible. I won't let you down! Thank you very much, as always, for reading, and [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) tumblr, where, among other things, you can yell at me to your heart's content.


	39. 2021

_ Day 1 without Derek _

_ August 27th, 1961 _

Will’s alarm clock barely pulls him out of slumber.

He’s not sure why, at first. It’s a muted sound, as if faraway, and where he usually wakes up naturally for his early-morning rise, today it’s a project all its own. Maybe he slept very deeply last night. He rolls over, eyelids heavy, to give Derek a kiss, like he always does just before he gets up for barn chores.

He finds empty mattress space next to him instead.

That’s when he remembers.  _ Agh.  _ Last night floods back to him in a torrent of unwelcome memory. They lay together, sure, made love, but it was the saddest love they’ve made. He doesn’t think they were  _ fighting _ , exactly, because he never felt angry, and Derek never seemed it. But he also can’t remember any night when they fell asleep on terms quite like those.

He barely remembers anything past the moment Derek laid him down. It’s all a blur, a haze— slow closeness and Derek’s mouth, the sensation that leaves him feeling empty and achy this morning, a few tears.

He sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes. Derek must be in the bathroom. He’ll coax him back into bed for a little more rest while he does his chores, and he’ll make him breakfast. He doesn’t work until this afternoon, so he has plenty of time to apologize, to make up for last night.

Not that he really thinks either of them did anything  _ wrong _ . But he never meant to upset him, to make any of this more difficult than it already has been for him. He wants to be sure he knows that. That Will loves him. That he’s sorry things are the way they are.

Everything will be okay. Who knows if Derek will take that bus today, but even if he does, Will will send him off with a proper goodbye.

It won’t be easy. But right now, all he wants to focus on is this morning, a good breakfast for him and an apology and the moments they can still share together.

He gets out of bed, and the bedroom is a little more drafty than he’d like it to be given he’s still naked. Once he’s pulled on underwear, some work jeans, and a light shirt, he makes his quiet way to the bathroom and peers inside.

“Der?”

The bathroom is dark, so he flicks on its light. But there’s no sign of Derek. It’s completely empty.

He hesitates a moment, in the doorway. The shower looks dry, as does the sink, and there’s no evidence of Derek being here recently at all. If he’s not in bed, and he’s not in the bathroom… where is he?

Will leaves the bathroom and walks down the hall. His hips are sore as he goes, the way they usually are after a night with him. Derek could be in the study, he guesses; he’s been there a lot over the past few days, after all, trying to complete that painting he still insists Will can’t see until it’s a finished product. He turns on lights as he goes, just the small ones in the hall, and opens the studio door. “My love?” He pokes his head inside. “Are you in here?”

But his studio is as dark and empty as the bathroom. Will turns the desk lamp on, surveying the scene. The painting canvas, which faces away from the door on the easel, is exactly as they left it last night when they made their way to the bedroom.

Will feels a prickle of anxiety. Where did he go?

Well, maybe— maybe, he reasons with himself, as he pulls back from the doorway to the study, maybe Derek went to sleep in the other room, his old room. It would be a somewhat upsetting discovery, to find that he didn’t sleep next to him last night, but he would understand, at least a little, why he might have gone there.

Still, hazy as the details of last night are in his memory, he  _ knows _ Derek fell asleep next to him. He remembers the gentle kisses to his face, the tear tracks on Derek’s cheeks, and the way he huddled right into his bare chest, the way he likes to. Derek is strong and always warm, especially after making love, and he renders Will so shaky and taken apart at times that it’s just so easy to completely collapse into him. He can sleep without a second thought.

Which was what happened last night, he knows. Now he regrets how quickly he slept. Maybe Derek needed comfort, or just to stay awake for an extra moment, or— something.

He really needs to apologize.

But his bedroom is empty as well, the sheets just as flat and unused on the bed as they have been for years. Derek isn’t upstairs at all. It’s still dark outside; there’s no way he could have already gone down, is there?

He walks back to his room. Maybe he missed him; maybe he was in an obvious place, hid really well under the covers. He won’t panic. Derek has to be around here somewhere. The house is big, and—

— and his bus ticket was for today.

He can’t be gone, can he? Will looks again into the study-studio as he passes the door. It’s only then that he catches sight of something— or, rather, the  _ lack _ of something— which should have jumped out at him before.

Derek’s notebooks are missing from the desk.

There was a stack of them, Will knows. And it was  _ right here _ — next to the typewriter, on top of the desk, leaning over like the Tower of Pisa. Four or five notebooks, at least, all in varying degrees of full.

They’re gone.

Will pulls open the top drawer of the desk, but aside from the few old photographs and things of Pa’s that are in there, there’s nothing inside. The same goes for the other drawers— they contain a few miscellaneous items, but nothing of Derek’s.

Will’s stomach turns.

He leaves the studio and walks, quickly now, back to the bedroom. The scene is clearer now, as he surveys it— Derek’s clothes, where they were in a small pile on the floor last night, are gone. So is his hat, from where it hung on the bedpost. But the worst thing, the most obvious thing, that makes him immediately ill, is the fact that, when he kneels to check under his bed, Derek’s  _ bag _ is gone.

He pulls open his dresser drawers, and his heart pounds as he takes in what he sees— his things, his clothes. They’re missing. Everything is missing.  _ Derek _ is missing— he’s not here. He must have gone while Will was sleeping—

He spots something, on his dresser, that wasn’t there when he fell asleep. It’s a notebook— it’s Derek’s notebook, the one he was writing in when they first got together, with the blue pages. He picks it up, flips through it in a hurry. It’s full of drawings and poems, some that Derek has shown him, others he’s seeing for the first time— but it’s done, cover to cover.  _ I could publish this _ , Derek said once, sitting with him by the pond, brandishing this notebook with a dazzling smile.  _ The chronicles of my extremely gay 1961 love affair. _

Will is shivering.

There’s a note written in the back cover.

_ i love you, anywhere and anytime _

_ you & me _

_ \- d _

*

_ Day 1 without Will _

He’s the only one on the bus.

“Slow travel season,” Johnson tells him, as he tosses his bag into an overhead compartment. “Sit anywhere you’d like.”

It’s dark outside still, and Johnson has brought him to a bus depot, past Good Haven’s middle school; he’s only been out this way once, and it was with Kent, to get to that art store. This bus seems to be the only one in station, at least right now, and its interior is plain, if a little dated, but clean. It’s not that any of it seems  _ sketchy _ , because for some very strange reason, he believes that Johnson can help him get home. It’s just… well, it’s five in the morning, and he’s tired and weary, and he misses Will so badly already that all he wants to do is lay in bed and cry.

But not Will’s bed. His own bed. Back home. Because the sooner he starts to remember how his life looked before all of this, before Good Haven, before Will, when things were— well— normal, the sooner this heartbreak will ease.

He thinks.

He doesn’t know. He’s too tired. He sits down in a seat three rows away from Johnson’s driver seat, sets his backpack in the empty seat next to him, and leans his head against the window.

“Don’t worry,” Johnson tells him, as he starts up the brassy-sounding engine. The exhaust smells, even from the inside. “I’ll have you home in no time.”

He tips his Samwell cap over his shadowed face, and then they’re off.

Derek closes his eyes. He wants to sleep. He didn’t sleep at all last night, and he needs the rest. But when it becomes apparent that that isn’t going to happen, he looks out the window, watches the darkened outskirts of Good Haven pass by. How much did he pass, downtown, without knowing it was the last time he’d see it?

He was last at Annie’s three days ago, visiting Will at work, under the guise of coming in for a coffee and to shoot the shit with Kent (which he did). That was the last time he saw Kent, too, now that he thinks of it. He had a random argument with him about the proper way to make mac and cheese, and Kent laughed at him over the sound of the jukebox and the crowded dining room. He remembers so clearly a moment when he caught Will’s eye behind the bar and saw him smiling, just slightly, as he wiped down the coffee machine.

He shakes the memory away.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Johnson says, from a few rows up.

Derek jolts a little. It’s just trees passing by the bus now. He thinks they’re on the highway, but he’s not sure how long he was zoned out.

He isn’t even sure he has much of a voice, but he can’t just, like, not respond. Johnson  _ knows _ he’s the only person on this bus. He’s obviously talking to him. “What am I thinking,” he deadpans, and though it’s a question, it doesn’t really come out like one.

“That this totally sucks.” Johnson is sort of shouting, over the sound of the bus, or at least calling. “And I can’t blame you, dude. It does. But remember what I said?”

Derek is  _ still _ convinced that Johnson is some kind of time-travel induced hallucination, but he’s way too fucking tired to put that much thought into it right now.

“Nursey?” he asks, when Derek has apparently been quiet too long. “Do you remember?”

Derek sighs. “I don’t remember, dude.”

“Eventual happy ending.” Johnson seems self-satisfied, like this vague speak explains everything. Apparently, in his brain, it does. “Things will work out just fine for you in the end.”

“Yeah.” Still way too tired for this, he pulls his green hat down on his forehead. “I sure hope so.”

“We have to make a few stops for other passengers on our journey,” Johnson adds. “But not until we get over the warp, obviously.”

Derek blinks. “The what?”

“The warp.” Johnson pauses. “Uh, you know. The thing that got you here in the first place?”

Yeah. Time-travel induced hallucination.

He tips his head against the window again. They’re going much faster now. He wonders if they’ve already gotten over the warp, or if it’s close by.

He wonders if this is all a scam and Johnson is going to take him to 1961 New York. Or worse, some random place, where he’ll be kidnapped or something.

He’s too tired.

“But in the meantime,” Johnson adds. “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. And let me know if you need anything.”

Great.

He closes his eyes again, but this is a mistake. Because when he does, all at once he’s back in Will’s bed, holding him close, skin on skin, Will’s lips feathering a kiss to his neck. It’s safe, and warm, and so comfortable, and he wants to be nowhere else in the world.

He jolts awake from the daydream with a lump in his throat. Or maybe it was a full dream. He can’t tell if he went to sleep, but either way, the thought of Will, and everywhere he was, so close and so loving— it’s too much right now.

He settles in, and does not cry.

He has a long ride home ahead of him.

*

Will sits on the edge of his bed.

He holds Derek’s notebook in his hands, and he feels himself shaking, just a little, as he flips through its pages. He knows what’s inside; this must be his third time through it, but he can’t help it. After the frantic search of his room, and calling his name around the house a few times, even looking out onto the porch, he knows this is all that remains of him. This, the paint canvas, and a sweater Derek left, by mistake, hanging in Will’s closet.

Derek is gone.

Will thumbs through poems and sketches, a few paragraphs of prose or lists interspersed between the more common stuff. He spots a sketch of the barn, another of what looks like a plate of food from Annie’s. There are even a few sketches of him in bed— naked, he knows, but with the sheets artfully placed or the angle drawn such that there’s nothing all that indecent on display. Derek doesn’t self-portrait often, but Will is so, so grateful suddenly for the few times he has.

There are a few drawings of the both of them, towards the back of the book. They’re close together, as if posing for a camera. They hurt too much for Will to look at right now.

His brain— it feels numb. Tired. Like he could sleep for another eight hours, and still not be fully rested when he wakes.

He knew Derek had to go, but he thought he’d say goodbye.

Maybe last night was goodbye, and Will had no idea.

He holds the notebook to his chest, takes a long breath in, and closes his eyes. It’s enough to make him want to crawl back into bed entirely. He doesn’t work until this afternoon, but  _ God _ , the thought of working right now feels so far off. Maybe he should call Kenny, take a sick day.

He can’t stop going over the note in the back cover.  _ I love you, anywhere and anytime. _

And  _ you and me _ .

He will never see him again.

All he wants to do is sleep.

What pulls him out of his daze is a very faint  _ mooo _ . He jerks, and looks to the window. The ladies are waiting for him.

Sunrise is dawning over the farm, and for the first time in months, Will’s home feels painfully, overwhelmingly empty.

*

About fifteen minutes into the ride, Derek’s phone lights up in his backpack.

He digs into it, because if nothing else, catching up on, well, everything will give him something to do. He wonders if he should text Chowder, but decides against it; his battery level isn’t fantastic, and a messaging conversation will quickly deplete it. Instead, he turns on low power mode, opens the news app, and determines he’ll call Chowder as soon as he’s back home.

He’s tempted, for a split second, to look up Will’s name in his browser. He even opens Safari, taps on the search bar, and gets halfway there. But as his thumb hovers over the W in his keyboard, he chickens out; the thought of knowing where Will is now makes him dizzy and nauseous. He closes out Safari, goes back to his news.

It’s all the same old; it looks like no global wars or massive political changes or earth-shaking natural disasters have occurred in the months he’s missed. And that’s when it hits him— the date on his phone calendar is July 24th, 2021.

He’s missed just upward of two weeks of real-world time.

That’s not all that much news to catch up on.

He heads to Twitter, where he has a generous stack of notifications. He interacts with fellow writers and various book industry people on there all the time, and it’s where he does his fair share of talking about social justice, too. But right now, Twitter feels like such an alien concept, so much more complicated than any of the non-technological pastimes he learned to adopt in Good Haven.

Even his phone screen hurts his eyes a little.

He sleeps the display, then— an idea through the gray he can feel overtaking his brain.  _ Music _ . He should listen to his music.

He digs through his backpack, littered with notebooks and loose papers and random other shit he brought on vacation and never used, until he finds his headphones at the very bottom of it. He yanks them out, dusts them off, and connects them to his phone. Using a cell phone feels so foreign, and his eyes hurt. His head hurts. He just wants to sleep, but every time he closes his eyes, he sees Will.

The music is a good idea for approximately half of his favorite Frank Ocean album. After that, he gets sidetracked, and goes to look up a song he knows he shouldn’t listen to right now. When its opening notes play through his headphones, he  _ knows _ it’s a bad idea.

He listens anyway.

_ Somewhere, beyond the sea… _

*

The bus stops three times— once in Portland, once in Boston, and once in Hartford. Derek cycles through various songs in his library that he wagers  _ won’t _ give him an emotional breakdown, but given all he can feel at the moment is gray, it’s relatively successful.

He almost doesn’t realize that they’ve made it home, until he looks out the window and sees Manhattan.

It’s just as he left it. The sight of his city brings him the closest to tears he’s been all day. The buildings are more than two stories, and everything is sleek and fast and  _ modern _ , and it’s home. It’s always been home.

How he would’ve loved to show Will this place.

There are other people on the bus, by now. Derek has become vaguely aware of that as they’ve driven along. The sun is hanging high in the sky now; it must be scorching hot out there, if the way people look in the street is any indication. He surveys the rest of the bus. Some are on their phones, others are asleep. Everyone looks so, so much more accustomed to the life he knows than anyone did in Good Haven.

It’s a relief, but at the same time, he can’t feel much of anything.

When Johnson stops the bus, he almost doesn’t realize where they are. But then he goes over an intercom system Derek didn’t realize this bus had, and his voice takes him out of his head.

“Special drop-off spot,” he announces, and Derek looks out the window.

He’s  _ home _ . That’s his apartment building.

“This is you, Nursey,” Johnson adds, off-intercom. Derek stands, and his legs feel like Jell-O.

He takes his bag down from the overhead, slings his backpack over his shoulder, and walks to the bus’ double doors. It smells awful outside, like that exhaust.

“Remember what I said,” Johnson says, tipping his Samwell cap. “Eventual happy ending.”

He’s a product of a lack of proper medication, Derek decides. Maybe this entire trip was. Maybe it was a dream. He’ll wake up any second in bed, up in his apartment, the morning he’s supposed to leave for vacation. “Thanks, Johnson.”

“Don’t worry,” Johnson adds, as Derek is halfway down the steps to the sidewalk. “Will will be okay. You both will.”

Sure. Right. “Whatever you say.”

It’s not until he gets up the stairs— the elevator, all of a sudden, seems scary— and safely onto his own floor that he grabs for his keys inside his backpack. When he unlocks his apartment, it’s dark and humid inside; he has to turn on the A/C.

But first—  _ God _ . He drops his things on the counter and exhales.

_ Now _ he feels like he could  _ really  _ cry.

Instead, he pulls his phone out and dials. It rings twice, and he looks around his empty kitchen while it does.

“Hullo?”

It’s the most comforting voice he could hear right now. “Chowder,” he breathes, resting his face in his hand. “I’m home.”

“ _ Nursey _ .” Chowder sounds like he’s smiling. “Thank God, dude. Are you okay?”

“I’m.” He swallows.  _ No.  _ “I’ve been better.”

Chowder, because he’s Chowder, keeps a steady voice. “Do you need to talk about it?”

Derek’s legs give out on him, and he slumps down into a stool at his counter. It’s a good place to sit, but it’s no barstool at Annie’s.

He sniffles, but does not cry, and to Chowder, he says, “I have so much to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Chanting* Ten more! Ten more! [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and thank you very much, as always, for reading. <3


	40. some of these days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter title from my favorite late 50s/early 60s album! Fun fact: I can count at least 3 previous chapter titles, plus this one now, that are named for songs on that record. [For the curious mind.....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That%27s_All_\(Bobby_Darin_album\))

_ Day 2 without Derek _

_ August 28th, 1961 _

You can’t take two sick days in a row.

This isn’t a  _ rule _ , at least not one instated by Annie or Kent. But Will has set it in place, unofficially, for himself. He allows himself one day to call out of his shift, and though he knows he isn’t in a place to be working and pleasant with customers, he also doesn’t make much of the extra free time his lack of having to work gives him. He spends a long time out in the barn, doing his regular chores and then doing some other things, like re-organizing his toolbox and weeding around the vegetable garden until the space under his fingernails is black with dirt. Dinner is an affair that shouldn’t be complicated but is; he has groceries in the house to make dinner for two, the way he’s been buying things for all these weeks of Derek staying with him, but it’s too much food for one person. He puts leftovers in the fridge. At least he’ll be set for dinner tomorrow.

The bed feels vast and empty, and he tosses and turns for a fitful rest. When his alarm clock goes at dawn the second day, it’s almost a relief, because at least he doesn’t have to lay in this space he shared with Derek, smelling him on the sheets, seeing him when he closes his weary eyes.

This morning, he’s working, and he can’t call out of this one. He can’t do another day alone at home, in the empty house with only his thoughts. He’s not sure he’s ever felt  _ more _ alone.

So he goes into work. He thinks it might be comforting, the rhythm of familiarity, the structure in the task at hand that is work— but once he sets foot through the door at Annie’s, it feels like this summer, like Derek is going to be loitering at the bar counter or painting the walls or popping in for a random, discrete visit.

But Derek is nowhere. All that’s left of him are the walls, with their brand new paint.

“Hey, Dexy,” says an oblivious Kent, handing him a stack of menus as he takes up station at the bar. “You feeling better?”

Will takes the menus and shuffles them into a neat pile. It takes him a second to realize Kent has asked him a question, and he only realizes when Kent asks, “Dexy?”

“Oh—” He jerks a little, looks up at him. “I’m fine.”

“You… were sick yesterday?” Kent continues, which is all he knows, because it’s all Will said on the phone.  _ I’m not feeling well, and I don’t think I can come in.  _ Kent was fine about it, and covered his shift for him, but Will knows he doesn’t know why.

“Yeah.” Will pauses. He tightens his apron. “Didn’t feel well.”

“Well, alright.” Kent looks from side to side, then  _ smiles _ , this smug thing as he leans in, and lowers his voice. There aren’t any patrons in earshot, so it doesn’t matter, but he speaks softly as he nudges Will with a wink. “But see if I let you play hooky again, huh, lover boy?”

Will is tired. “Right. Okay.”

Kent laughs, as he lets off him and heads back over to his post. “Fine,” he calls, over his shoulder. “Keep your secrets.”

And for the time being, that’s the end of it. Will dials into work mode, and it feels robotic, but it’s something to do. It’s something to occupy his mind with besides the overwhelming aloneness that he’s been focusing on for the past twenty-four hours.

Everything is normal at Annie’s. It’s maybe the only thing that feels normal. Until he goes on break.

He steps outside for it, out back, because it’s sunny out, and the poorly lit employee lockers don’t feel like the greatest place to be right now. He also does it in part to avoid having to talk to anyone, because the only people who really ever come back here are Johnson and Kenny when they want a smoke on their breaks. And both of them are busy now.

Or so he thinks. He leans against the wall and just takes a few breaths of fresh air, like it might clear out his system. It feels safe, and isolated, until there’s a voice behind him.

“Say, uh, Dexy.”

It’s Kent again, which isn’t the worst person it could be. He fixes his eyes on him and asks, “Are you on break?” It comes out more apathetic than Kenny really deserves, seeing as he did nothing to hurt Will, but he doesn’t have it in him to care too much about the way he sounds right now.

“Well, no, but— I won’t be long.” Kent digs into the pockets of his apron, which he’s still wearing out here, for some reason, and when he can’t find whatever it is he’s looking for there, he goes into his actual pants. From there, he pulls a small photograph. “I’ve got something for you.”

Will squints. He can’t see what the photo is of. But Kent holds it forward and continues, “I thought you oughta have this,” so he takes it, turning it over in his hands.

It makes him a little sick to his stomach. In the photo is himself and Derek, on opposite sides of the bar in the dining room. Derek is in his painting clothes, the overalls Will lent him and his green hat (though it’s gray in no color), and Will is in standard work attire; they’re both grinning for the camera. Will leans on the bar and tilts himself toward him; Derek is flashing a thumbs-up and looks utterly pleased.

They look…  _ happy _ .

“Who took this?” Will manages to get out, after he’s stared at the photo for too long.

“My mama,” Kent replies, which is an odd response, until he adds, “Remember?” And Will does remember— because now that he thinks of it, Annie was around the place with a camera a few weeks ago, while Derek was painting.  _ I need some new photos for the walls _ , she said, with a big smile, as she held her camera up to him and Derek.  _ It can’t just be all young me forever, now, can it? _

The shutter clicked, and Derek whispered,  _ The camera loves you, Dexy _ . Right after the photo was taken, Will remembers laughing at him, full and loud.

“Uh…” he says, because he feels so frozen and ill. “I guess so.”

Kent is hovering over the photo, studying it with him. “Thought you might want it,” he says.

Will stares at himself a little more. To look head-on at Derek—  _ God _ , is this the only photograph anyone has of him? The last glance Will will ever get at him?

“It’s cute, huh?” Kent sounds so well-meaning, so genuinely thoughtful. “Is it your first time photographed together?”

_ And last _ . Will can’t keep this. “I, uh…” He tears his eyes away from Derek’s smile in black and white. “Kenny, I think you oughta keep this.”

“What?” As he presses it back into his hand, Kent squints. “But don’t you want it?”

Will lets off a sigh that feels sharp in his chest. “No. I don’t.” He pauses, then adds a quick, “But thank you.”

“Dexy.” Kent keeps the photo held out, but there’s concern in his eyes now, and it’s growing steadily. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Something… happened with Curly, didn’t it?”

No use denying it. “Um… yes.”

“Oh, no,” Kent says. “What happened? Is he okay? Are you?”

“I’m fine, Kenny.” He can’t take this beating around the bush anymore. “And so’s Derek,” he adds, because as far as he knows, that’s true. “It’s just… he’s gone.”

Kent blinks. “Gone?”

“Left.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, and  _ God _ , it fucking hurts. “He went home.”

“Oh.” Realization dawns on Kent’s face, and then his concern grows by a hundredfold. “ _ Oh _ . Dexy. What? When? Just yesterday?”

Will nods. His head hurts, all of a sudden.

“Did you fight?”

“No…” He shakes his head. “No.”

“Jeez, Dexy, if I’d have known—”

“I think it’s almost worse that we didn’t fight,” he remarks, which stops Kent in his tracks.

“What?” He cocks his head a little, looks confused. “Why?”

Will’s head  _ really _ hurts. “A fight would’ve been goodbye.”

“Did you…” Kent hesitates a second. “... not get goodbye?”

“We went to sleep,” he says, and suddenly it’s pouring out, all the re-lived awful of the past forty-eight hours. “And I woke up, and he was gone.”

Something slightly angry crosses Kent’s expression, and he frowns. “Why, that little—”

“Kenny,  _ no _ ,” he cuts in, before he can get too riled-up. “I’m not angry with him.”

Kent looks willing to respect that, but still a little confused, too. “He didn’t say goodbye?”

“He did.” In a flash of unwelcome memory, he’s back in bed with him, laying under him, Derek’s lips pressing all over his skin.  _ I love you _ , he tells him, over and over, as they move together.  _ Always, Will. I’ll always love you _ . There are tear tracks on his face and Will has no idea when they got there, how long they’ve been there.  _ I love you _ , Derek says again, and he kisses Will’s questions away. Will melts in his arms, gets lost in his skin and his touch, because he always does.

Now, Will pulls himself out of his head. “I just didn’t know it was goodbye,” he finishes.

“Dexy.” Kent’s frown is strained. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, Kenny,” he insists, because it has to be. “Really. No use wallowing now.”

“But—”

“My break is over, anyways.” Which is true. Or at least he wants it to be true, because the longer he stays out here, the closer he knows he’ll get to a state of unwell that won’t let him focus on the job. He tries to push past Kenny, to head back toward the back door.

Kent takes hold of his forearm, gently, but with purpose, and says, “Will.” He stills, for the moment, and sighs.

“I’m here,” Kent says. “Okay?”

Will looks him in the eye, because this is his best friend, no matter how dull he feels, and he’s trying to help. “Thank you, Kenny,” he tells him.

“You swear he left on good terms?”

“Good enough.” He doesn’t think any goodbye would have been enough for the way he feels right now.

“Alright.” Kent reaches forward, then tucks the photograph, folded neatly in half, into the breast pocket of his shirt. Will wants to protest, but can’t find it in him. “Keep this, then.”

“Kenny,” he murmurs.

“I’m serious.” Kent pauses, then meets his eyes again. “You can say you don’t want it, but there could come a time when you do.”

And for now, that’s all they say about it.

Will goes back to work and finishes his shift, because there’s nothing else he can do.

He doesn’t think about the photo, or at least he tries his damndest.

*

_ Day 2 without Will _

_ July 25th, 2021 _

Derek is good at distractions.

He isn’t sure where he picked up the skill. At Andover, maybe— it seems like a likely place. After all, what else is there to do during four years of struggling with your worsening mental health than to figure out ways to deter your own attention for said struggle? He perfected the skill at Samwell, though he didn’t need it as much there, at least not for serious mental health reasons. But it’s come in handy in idle time since then, living alone.

He’s pretty sure it’s why he started writing, way back in adolescence— that search for something to focus on besides his thoughts led him to the possibility in a pencil and a blank page. He’s found, actually, that it’s sort of  _ easier _ to write whenever he’s upset or teetering on the edge of gray— when he needs it, when writing is the only thing keeping him from going under.

Heartbreak is similar. Pouring feelings into poetry is how he gets over it, or at least how he’s always tried to.

So this time around is— or should be— no different. What do you do to keep your heart from breaking? You write for your life.

On his second day back home— a Sunday, sweltering hot, one he and Will would most definitely spend by the pond soaking up the sun— Derek gets to work.

He pulls out his notebook, the one with all the original poems for his new book, and charges his laptop for the first time in months but really only weeks. He has never been more grateful to open a simple word processor application in his life.

He cracks the spine of his notebook, gently, and doesn’t think about it. About him.

Then he types up the entire thing, cover to cover, over the course of one lonely afternoon.

*

_ Sunday 7/25/21 11:13 PM _

_ FROM:  _ [ _ dmnurse@gmail.com _ ](mailto:dmnurse@gmail.com)

_ TO:  _ [ _ jprice@roweliterary.org _ ](mailto:jprice@roweliterary.org)

_ SUBJECT: finally!!! _

_ Hey Jayda, _

_ Hope that all is well. I’m finally home from my vacation, and I have a gift for you— or a curse, depending on its quality. Thank you so much for letting me step away while I worked this out. _

_ May I present: my newest first draft. It’s an assortment of Americana that I put together on vacation. Sorry to email it all at once, but I just finalized typing it and wanted to get it in your hands ASAP. _

_ Looking forward to potentially working on this together. _

_ \- Derek _

*

_ Monday 7/26/21 9:02 AM _

_ FROM:  _ [ _ jprice@roweliterary.org _ ](mailto:jprice@roweliterary.org)

_ TO:  _ [ _ dmnurse@gmail.com _ ](mailto:dmnurse@gmail.com)

_ SUBJECT: RE: finally!!! _

_ Derek, _

_ Three cheers for fresh new reading! Thank you so much. And welcome back, by the way— your best friend in California called last week to say you were in some tech trouble; I’m very glad to hear from you safe and sound! BTW, where did you go on vacation? _

_ Onward and upward! :) _

_ Jayda _

*

_ Monday 7/26/21 11:58 AM _

_ FROM:  _ [ _ dmnurse@gmail.com _ ](mailto:dmnurse@gmail.com)

_ TO:  _ [ _ jprice@roweliterary.org _ ](mailto:jprice@roweliterary.org)

_ SUBJECT: RE: finally!!! _

_ I went to this little town in middle-of-nowhere Maine. Definitely not my typical vacation spot, but I wound up there on accident. It was a nice place, but you’re right, the reception and Internet situation was awful, lmao. Hence my radio silence. At least it fueled inspiration. _

_ Next time I’m saving up and just going to Hawaii. _

*

_ Monday 7/26/21 3:15 PM _

_ FROM:  _ [ _ jprice@roweliterary.org _ ](mailto:jprice@roweliterary.org)

_ TO:  _ [ _ dmnurse@gmail.com _ ](mailto:dmnurse@gmail.com)

_ SUBJECT: RE: finally!!! _

_ Ooh, sounds rustic! Glad to know it gave you some good creative juice, even if it was a little outside the box, hahaha. What I wouldn’t give for an island vacation. Bring me in your suitcase! _

_ By the way, starting your MS tonight. Very excited!!!! _

*

_ Day 5 without Will _

_ July 28th, 2021 _

Going back to work is good.

It’s another distraction, a way to occupy himself, and it’s a familiar rhythm to fall back into. Days are spent in the office doing his usual beat work, and nights at home are for typing up more of what he wrote this summer, and thinking about his dissertation.

It’s weird, missing five months in the span of two weeks. You feel like you’ve been gone for ages, but to the rest of the world, you just took a slightly extended vacation.

If only that were really all this was. It’d be a lot simpler to deal with now.

But he doesn’t regret it. How could he regret Will?

He isn’t thinking about him.

On day three back to work, while he’s settling in at home for the afternoon, his phone rings, and he jumps. Apparently, cell phones are one of many things he’s re-adjusting to.

It’s Jayda, which is scary for a second, until he remembers he literally sent her an entire manuscript three days ago. He picks up and sits down in his desk chair. “Hello?”

“Derek!” She sounds in great spirits. “It’s your favorite agent.”

He tries a laugh. It sounds and feels weird, but he’s pretty sure she won’t notice. “And also my only agent.”

“Very true.” Jayda pauses for just a second, then says, “Look, so hey— I just got finished reading your new manuscript.”

“Oh— uh?” That was very fast, even for her. “Already?”

“Yeah!” She sounds in  _ really  _ good spirits. “Derek— this is fantastic work.”

“Oh.” He feels like he’s hearing her in slow motion. “Uh— thank you so much.”

“I mean seriously great,” she adds. “I don’t know what you did on vacation, but it looks like it worked out great for you.”

“Thank you.” He plasters on a layer of chill, because how else are you supposed to have a conversation with your agent about a manuscript you wrote while time-traveling and falling in love? “That’s really great to hear.”

“I think we can move forward with this.” She’s obviously dialed into work mode, which, all the power to her. Derek wishes he could get into the same headspace. “Maybe a quick pass of edits?” Jayda suggests. “And then let’s get it out there.”

“Out there?” He pauses. Does she mean what he thinks she means? “On sub?”

“Yeah!” she says, which,  _ wow _ . “Unless you don’t feel ready? It’s top-quality work. Very polished. I’d say it just needs minimal touching up.”

“I, uh— no, of course I feel ready.” Is it really that good? “Let’s definitely do that.”

“ _ Awesome _ .” She sounds like she’s grinning. “Okay, I’m cutting it close for a meeting because I was finishing up the manuscript, so I’ve gotta run, but I wanted to give you a call while it was fresh. I’ll be in touch with some edits, okay? Then we can get the ball rolling.”

“Perfect.” He should be relieved, but everything feels cloudy. “Thank you so much, Jayda.”

“Thank  _ you _ , Derek.” There’s pride in her voice, for a moment. “You really delivered on this one.”

With that, she’s gone. He looks at his phone in his hand for a second, then sighs and leans back in his chair. The manuscript must be strong. He had no idea it was good enough for Jayda to only want minimal edits. His first manuscript went through two rounds of edits before they even thought about going on sub.

He runs his hands through his hair. Isn’t this everything he wanted? Five months ago— two weeks ago— this would’ve been the solution to all of his problems. This phone call would have fixed everything. It was the only thing he could think to want.

Now it feels  _ good _ , sure, to know that he still has the identity of a good author in him. But there’s so much, so much in his head that wasn’t there before. So much that came  _ with _ the writing of that manuscript, that’s added to his wants and his pains and the things he can’t have.

With one problem gone, a host of others loom. And none of them are fixable.

At least he learned how to write again.


	41. cope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a stupid chapter title, but I couldn't think of anything better for this particular one. Have a fun little easter egg, for those of you who are familiar with my other fics. Also, a heads-up: there are allusions to alcoholism and drinking in the latter part of this chapter.

_Day 15 without Will_

_August 7th, 2021_

The thing about recovering from a breakup is this: life keeps moving around you, even when you’re trying to catch up with normality. Going to work is good, as is diving into the edits Jayda sends him on the new manuscript. These are things that can occupy Derek’s attention, can distract him from the way life feels a little empty now, the way Will could be far away or not even alive right now and he’d be powerless to do anything about it.

A part of him wants to know. Another knows that trying to figure out what Will is up to in this century is a very bad idea.

So he doesn’t look into it. Instead, he dials in on writing— which, thank God, is still coming pretty smoothly; heartache does a good poet make. And he goes to work, and he does his edits for Jayda, and he just generally tries not to succumb to the gray he knows is threatening his mental state.

It’s like. He’s _okay_ , in the general sense. He knew, going into his entire relationship with Will, that it wasn’t going to be the kind of thing that could last forever. It couldn’t have. He was never going to stay there, if he could help it.

He just… also never really planned on falling in love. Because dating someone and falling in love with them are two very different things, and Derek isn’t sure he’s done the latter in _years_. If he’s ever really been in love at all, it’s nothing like what he had with Will. That was something profoundly different, from its start to its finish, and maybe Derek was an idiot for ever getting himself into it in the first place, if for no other reason than how much it hurts now.

But at the same time, he can’t bring himself to regret it. If loving Will was a mistake, then it’s the best mistake he’s ever made.

So life goes on. And Derek is okay. Or at least he has to be okay. If there’s one thing he’s really good at… it’s faking it.

The thing is that he’s also a gay with inherent unhealthy coping mechanisms. So about two weeks into trying to live life as usual, he texts Chowder on impulse.

_Me: yoooooo_

_Me: c_

_Me: should i get a tattoo_

_big c: I feel like I’m obligated to ask if there’s a crisis going on that led to this question_

_big c: Besides the obvious?_

_Me: like i’m fine lol_

_Me: i just idk i’ve wanted another one forever_

_Me: and the body art muse is calling_

_big c: What do u want to get?_

_Me: like… flowers????_

_Me: lol i really want flowers_

_Me: on my shoulder_

_big c: Are you SURE you’re not having a crisis?_

_Me: even if i was_

_Me: is a tattoo the worst way to deal with it_

_Me: lol_

_big c: I mean_

_big c: I guess not?????_

_big c: But seriously nursey are u ok_

_Me: i’m okay_

_Me: i miss him_

_Me: but it’s not like i can have him_

_Me: loooooool_

_big c: :(_

_Me: think about it_

_Me: a tattoo will quell my gay need for a change in appearance_

_Me: bc i would look like shit with bleached hair_

_Me: plus i want more tattoos anyway_

_big c: I feel like nothing I say will make you change your mind…_

_big c: I support you_

_big c: But also_

_big c: I’m here for you_

_big c: You know that right?????????_

_Me: yes i do and i love u for it_

_Me: im sorry for my unhealthy coping mechanisms_

_big c: You dont have to be sorry!!_

_big c: Just like_

_big c: Wait also I love you too_

_You loved a message_

_big c: So anyway_

_big c: I dont think its the WORST idea_

_big c: I just think you should be careful to like_

_big c: If you get a tattoo not get anything that’s really sentimental_

_big c: Like_

_big c: Don’t get something that reminds you of him_

_Me: ohhhh_ _  
_ _Me: yeah haha don’t worry i won’t_

_Me: its chill_

_big c: Okay…_

_big c: I’m not trying to be like, preachy?_

_big c: I just don’t want you to regret something_

_Me: oh bro no you totally don’t sound preachy_

_Me: dw abt it one bit_

_big c: Okay._

_big c: Can I call you later today?_

_big c: Just to talk instead of text_

_Me: hell yea bro_

*

_Day 18 without Will_

_August 10th, 2021_

Derek isn’t _quite_ in constant queer crisis enough to have a designated ‘tattoo guy’.

Well, or girl, or anyone else. But he doesn’t have one. If anything, his ‘tattoo guy’ is his cousin, Mataio, out on the island, who gave him his cuff tattoo when he was eighteen. He took a trip out there with his parents, the summer before Samwell, after high school graduation. It’s one of his nicest memories, both with his parents and in general, and was, come to think of it, one of the only times he can remember that they took a vacation as a family. They told him it was to celebrate graduation, his achievements, and what would come next at Samwell.

But for him, that trip— that summer— was about more than just a milestone in his education. That summer was a battle cry. It was Andover, his four worst years yet, wrapped up and gone and _done_ — and not just passively over, either, but fought, endured. The world and his brain had stared him down and dared him to try to survive, and he _had_. Despite every awful moment when he never thought he would, or even could.

The band tattoo, then, the one he got that summer, is more than just a piece of ink. It represents a portion of his heritage, of course, and certainly contains a lot of tradition from the island— but beyond even that, it’s a testament to the fact that he made it to eighteen. Imprinted on him for the world to see— and, more importantly, for _himself_ to see— it says, loud and clear, _I am still alive_.

It wouldn’t be his last tattoo, but even today, it’s his favorite.

Still, though. He doesn’t have a ‘tattoo guy’. His other two tattoos came at different times and places— first, the one on his ribs, a favorite quote of his, which was mostly an impulsive decision but also kind of in honor of his 21st birthday. He got it at a place in Boston, when he went out for the night with Chowder, Caitlin, and the one soccer girl he dated for a little while junior year. She thought it was weird, but he was excited. They broke up not so long afterwards.

The artist that night wasn’t memorable, except for the fact that she was Black, so he trusted her with his skin for that reason. A year later, when he got the hockey sticks on his hipbone to commemorate four years of Samwell hockey come and gone, the artist, a Latino dude, was also trustworthy.

It’s not that he _wouldn’t_ trust a white person to give him a tattoo. He just likes to be careful, because he doesn’t want something permanently put on his body that looks like shit.

So… basically, the point is, he doesn’t have a tattoo guy, but if he did, it probably wouldn’t be a white person.

Which isn’t relevant, until it is. He wants a tattoo, so he consults his sources.

He thinks it’s kind of funny, actually, that he’s lived in this city his entire life but all his tattoos have occurred elsewhere. He figures now is as good a time as any to change that.

So the Monday after he texts Chowder about it, he talks to his one coworker, who has a cool half-sleeve. She gives him an address and a number, and he makes a little sketch, then an appointment for the next night.

Because, like. Fuck it. Unhealthier coping mechanisms exist, and he really _has_ been wanting to get something done.

He brings the sketch in on a Tuesday night, which, yeah, is a totally weird time to do it, but he doesn’t care. The inside is literally every tattoo parlor ever, with the medical-looking chairs, brightly painted walls, sample art, you get the picture. It’s small, and tucked into a basement that’s two subway stops from home.

The artist, unfortunately, is white. Kiara from the publishing office did not inform him of this detail. He also happens to be incredibly conventionally attractive, or at least by hipster standards, but not at all Derek’s type. Not that, even if he were, he’d be in any place to have eyes for other people right now. The only thing he can think to want is Will.

“Hey,” the tattoo guy says. He’s wearing a Providence Falconers tank-top, which is low-key weird for New York, but, like, whatever. His black hair must be kind of long, given that it’s piled into a bun and held together by a scrunchie. He has a bunch of bracelets on, including a rainbow one that looks like it could be from a Pride. “You Derek?” he asks.

He plasters on his best chill persona. “Ch’yeah.”

“Sweet.” He steps forward, extending his hand, and it takes Derek longer than it should to realize he’s offering a handshake. “I’m Ben,” he says, once Derek gets with the program.

He really has to chill. Being a mess in public is not something he does.

“Nice to meet you, man,” he says.

“You, too.” Ben pauses, pushing one of several loose strands of his hair out of his face, and then says, “So what are we doing? Do you have an idea ready?”

“Oh—” This, he can do. He nods, and digs into three of the pockets on his jeans before he finds his sketch in the fourth. “Yeah, it’s here. I sketched it out.”

Ben takes the folded paper from him, and inspects it with a steady nod. There’s a little grin on his face when he asks, “Are these… like… peonies?”

“Ha.” He wonders if the laugh sounds too forced. He didn’t really expect his tattoo guy to be a flower identification expert, but, like, whatever. They’re just flowers. They don’t mean anything. “Uh, yeah. Peonies. Exactly.”

“Cool.” Ben holds the drawing up to the light, still nodding to himself, and fixes his hair again. “Where do you want it?”

He rolls his sleeve up a little, and points to his shoulder on the opposite arm from the one with all his island ink. “My shoulder.”

“Bet.” Ben folds the paper, and beckons for him to follow. “Let’s get to it.”

*

It takes a little while, because it’s a big piece. It pinches, but doesn’t hurt; Derek has had his practice, and is determined not to be a little wimp about a needle. It’s worth it, always is.

He’s grateful that he maintained some kind of ability to have basic social skills during his lengthy stay away from the present, because even though he knows he doesn’t _have_ to have a conversation with this guy, it feels weird to just sit in silence. Also, he doesn’t like to have too much quiet in his head. He spends enough time in his empty apartment; Ben the tattoo guy is the first person he’s seen in days who isn’t from work.

And double also, he really tries to be a sociable person. It’s part of the chill he strives so desperately to maintain. So he makes small talk, and learns a little— Ben is from Rhode Island, hence the Falcs shirt, and eventually they get to talking about hockey because it turns out they both played in college. It’s a nice distraction, even if it makes him miss getting on the ice. Maybe he should try to find an open-skate.

In the middle of July. In New York City. His subconscious tells him, good luck with that.

When it’s done, it looks great. It’s one of the bigger pieces he’s gotten, and he knows it’ll take a little to heal, but he’s satisfied with the work, and he got what he set out for. That’s the thing about tattoos; they’re like free therapy. Actually, no. You have to pay for them. But it’s like therapy without any of the actual talking about your feelings.

Maybe Derek is just weird. Or maybe he’s just queer as hell. But whatever. The point is, it’s a good tattoo, and he’s glad he got it.

“I’m taking it you know the drill with taking care of it?” Ben asks, when he’s wiped it with the towel for the final time.

“Ch’yeah,” Derek replies, examining the fresh wound on his shoulder. The line work is as detailed as an actual photo of a flower. He can’t wait to see how it looks when it heals up. Chowder is maybe going to be disappointed in him, but he’s proud of his life choices. Self care is a new tattoo. “It looks great, man. Thank you.”

“Sweet.” Ben admires his handiwork for a second, then nods and points to the back of the shop, where there’s a little counter and a cash register. “I can ring you up back there.”

Derek grins. “Chill.”

He pays in cash, because cash only, and it’s not _ridiculously_ expensive but warrants breaking out some of the extra money he made painting for Kent. Which barely even crosses his mind, until Ben is looking at a twenty he gave him and goes, “Huh,” unceremoniously, as he’s punching numbers into the register.

Derek arches an eyebrow. “What?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Ben replies, as the register drawer pops open. “It’s just— kinda cool. This bill is wicked old.” Ben turns it to him, pointing to the fine print that denotes the year on the dollar. “See? 1961.” He shrugs, and tucks it away into the drawer. “But it’s not, like, super worn. Must’ve been well-kept.”

Derek’s stomach hurts a little. Of course it isn’t worn— because when Kent paid him for painting at Annie’s, it was with a stack of newly minted bills. Derek, apparently, lacks a filter tonight, because what he ends up saying in response is, “Oh, actually, I got that while I was time-traveling.”

He’s not sure why he says it out loud, but maybe he just wants to hear how ridiculous it really sounds. Just as he suspects, it lands like a joke. Ben laughs as he closes the register. “Time traveling,” he says. “Good one. With Doc Brown?”

“Yeah.” For a time-traveling pro, he really doesn’t know his sci-fi movies. And his _life_ feels like a sci-fi movie. Mixed with a historical romantic drama. “With the, uh… wait, what’s the car called? In the movie?”

“Oh, dude, the DeLorean.” Ben leans back on a stool behind the counter. “God, I love that movie.”

It’s a little too white for his tastes (like, his mom has a crush on him? Really?), but Derek feels like maybe he should re-evaluate his stance, given his recent experiences. “Yeah, it’s good.”

He needs to work on his chill. This is pitiful. But even if he’s presenting like as much of a disaster as he feels, it doesn’t seem like Ben cares. He seems _actually_ chill, the lucky asshole.

“Hey, thanks for the business, man,” he says, with a wave, once Derek is all set. “Come again.”

“Thank _you_ ,” he replies. “I appreciate the work.”

Ben flashes a peace sign. In this weird, distant way, he kind of reminds him of a less scarily omniscient Johnson. They have similar energy. Or maybe Derek is just descending slowly into madness.

That’s probably it.

But on the very bright side, he has a sweet new tattoo.

*

_Me: yoooooo_

_You sent a photo_

_big c liked a photo_

_big c: It looks great!!!_

_big c: What kind of flowers are those?_

_Me: peonies_

_Me: idk lol_

_Me: had them on my mind_

*

_Day 15 without Derek_

_September 10th, 1961_

It’s been a long shift, and Will is ready to go home.

The good thing, at least, is that that’s where he’s headed. It’s a beautiful day, with the first hints of autumn cool making their way into the breeze, and he still has enough of the afternoon left to get outside. Outside, he thinks, will be good for him. He has a lingering headache. He’s sort of had a headache for the past two weeks straight, actually.

Work has been odd, for those two weeks— the same, in most ways, as it’s always been, but with something missing, at the same time. He got so used to the way the diner was this summer, with Derek painting, or occasionally dropping by for something at the bar, or Kenny making all these little teasing jokes in passing, jokes that made Will more soft than irritated.

Kenny is so _careful_ with him now, like he’s a piece of dishware that might break if set down the wrong way. And there’s no source of blushing, no spontaneous visiting, no painter. All that’s left of Derek is the fresh paint job itself, evidence he was here left to mock Will from the walls each time he comes in.

Today, he’s glad to go. He bids Kent goodbye at three on the dot ( _take care of yourself, Dexy_ , he says; it’s what he always says now, and Will hates it).

On his way out the back door, he passes Johnson, who’s on his break having a smoke. Johnson, too, has been acting strange— well, maybe not any stranger than usual; maybe Will is only just noticing now that that’s how his personality is. It’s little things, like comments to Will in passing that make no sense— _welcome to the third act_ and _you only have eight chapters left_. Will wonders if he’s reading a book, or a play, or something.

Today, his words of wisdom begin with, “Hey Dex.” Johnson calls him Dex, which Will thinks he picked up from Kent’s ‘Dexy’. “Remember,” he says, “This is the ‘angst’ part of ‘angst with a happy ending’.”

Will is too tired to even try to understand what this means. “Have a nice afternoon, Johnson.”

The ride home feels extra long, which makes no sense, because of course it’s always the same length. He makes a beeline for his bedroom once he’s there, and changes into working clothes. Derek’s things, which used to litter every corner of his house, an existence imprinted on his home from the moment he invited him into it, are gone now. He put them away a few days ago, because he couldn’t stare at them any longer. From the unfinished canvas, rolled up and stuck into Pa’s desk, to the sweater he left here by mistake, hung up in the closet, everything is out of his sight. It makes it just a little easier to look around.

Once changed, he leaves the house without a word, and crosses the yard to the barn in a hurry.

It’s not that he’s… _ignoring_ his parents. He knows they’re still around; he can feel them, especially now, in the quiet house. He just… he isn’t sure what he should say to them. Hasn’t been sure, since Derek skipped town. He thinks he let them down, by getting his heart broken, after all he did to ensure he and Derek could be together.

He’s… ashamed. Ashamed of himself, for thinking this could have ended any differently. Ashamed that he’s letting it hurt him so much. That he can’t get his act together, even two weeks past, and still thinks of him all the time. He isn’t sure there’s a way around it. He thinks one day, he’ll figure out what to say to his parents, but he isn’t there yet.

What _is_ easy is talking to the ladies out in the barn. They don’t judge him. They never have. The first time he acknowledged that he had a crush on another boy, the cows heard it first. It took him another year to tell Kenny, and then eleven more to say it to anyone else— because Derek was the next.

“Afternoon, ladies,” he says to their indifferent faces, and gets to work.

*

Working out here is methodical. It makes sense. It’s comfortable.

He tells the ladies about his day at work, but doesn’t say much else. It takes two hours to do his chores, and when he’s done, he needs a drink.

The problem is that there’s nothing in the house, except Pa’s funeral whiskey, and it’ll be a cold day in hell when he drinks that. He hasn’t had a drink in months— hasn’t _wanted_ a drink in months. But his head is still hurting, and _everything_ is hurting, and he hasn’t felt this alone since the day they put Ma in the ground.

So he heads to the bar, and finds a way to drown his heartache and headache.


	42. bar harbor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, a warning today. This chapter contains this story’s first and last instance of very rampant on-page homophobic language. There’s no physical violence, but there’s a heated verbal confrontation, and it contains the use of the word ‘queer’ in a slur context. I don’t take this lightly, and when I set out to write this story, I intended very much to handle period-typical homophobia in a mostly “lurking offscreen” type way... but this chapter necessitates the only really bad incident in the story. No one is endangered or physically harmed. But if you would rather skip it, it starts after the break on the paragraph beginning “he hasn’t been inside Tommy’s house...” and continues through the end of the chapter.  
> Take care of yourselves, friends. And once again, I promise Will and Derek will be okay.

_ Day 29 without Will _

_ August 21st, 2021 _

Derek wakes up to a text.

He thinks, at first, that it’s from Chowder, and has no idea what Chowder is doing up at the ass-crack of California dawn on a Saturday. He’s ready to reprimand him for it, actually— not really for waking him up, because, like, he should get up anyway; he doesn’t want to sleep the day away, but he’s ready to tell  _ Chowder _ to go to bed, because it’s nine here, so it’s six in the morning out on the west coast.

So he rolls over in bed, and reaches around for his phone. It has to be Chowder, because Chowder is pretty much the only person who texts him casually. When he gets his phone out from under his pillow (because he fell asleep scrolling Twitter, which is really a great way to spend a Friday night, isn’t it), and turns it face-up, he consults the message. 

It’s not Chowder.

_ iMessage _

_ Saturday, 9:01 AM _

_ Dad _

_ Hello Derek. Haven’t heard from you in awhile. Want to come over for dinner? Hoping things are going well. Let me or Mom know. _

His stomach turns, and all at once he’s wide awake. He stares at the message against his city-skyline wallpaper for several seconds, until the display sleeps again, and he’s looking at his own face (bedhead and all) reflected on the black screen.

First of all: he looks rough. But in his defense, he just woke up. And second, much more importantly… what the fuck.

He turns his phone on again, to look at the text in the lock screen. He tries reading between the lines, for some kind of hidden meaning, but nothing about it seems menacing or even passive-aggressive. It’s the kind of text you randomly send an old friend when you’re thinking of them. Which is, like, fine, if you’re receiving that kind of text from someone who isn’t your  _ parent _ .

_ God _ . What the hell? It’s not that he  _ never _ speaks to his parents, just that his communication with them is pretty much limited to birthdays, holidays, and major events like his graduation from Samwell. He needed his space, after high school, and he got it. There was too much bad going on at Andover, and his parents weren’t there as much as he wanted them to be, and he just…

Has literally no idea why his dad wants to have dinner with him, out of the blue.

It’s too early to be awake on a weekend, and he’s exhausted, and he doesn’t have the energy to consider the implications of this text message right now.

He clears the notification from his lock screen, puts his phone on his bedside table, and buries his face in his pillow for some more sleeping in.

*

_ Day 31 without Derek _

_ September 26th, 1961 _

It’s a spur-of-the-moment decision, when Will gets in his truck.

It happens because he wakes up late, a normal thing to do on a Sunday, and thinks for a split second in a half-asleep haze that he’s going to roll over and kiss Derek good morning. He even gets as far as the actual rolling over, before he remembers. His bed is empty, and the trees are rustling outside his window with a wind that looks a little cold, and summer is over.

It happens because today is a Sunday, which would have been the day he and Derek had to themselves during the week; they would have spent it by the pond or maybe just around the farm, doing nothing and everything all at once. Sundays were for the two of them, and he only realizes this now that he’s spent a handful of Sundays completely alone. Today would have been  _ their _ day.

It happens because after he realizes all this, he’s just so  _ angry _ with himself all of a sudden, so fed-up with his inability to get on with his life. It’s been a month without him, just about, and Derek is never coming back, wouldn’t come back even if he lived in this century, Will thinks, and he needs to stop being so hung up on it. He needs a change. He needs…  _ something _ .

He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life hung up on something he can’t change.

So he gets in his truck. He’s done hiding from the things that upset him, or that remind him of pain. He needs to process the pain and get through with it, so life won’t hurt so much anymore.

Bar Harbor isn’t a far drive.

*

He intended to do this, to face the ocean, with Derek at his side. He thinks now that maybe he was never supposed to do that, that the fact that they ran into an obstacle on the way wasn’t a coincidence. The drive down today, alone, is more peaceful than he thinks it’s going to be. He keeps the radio on, to keep him company; he got used to not needing the radio for company, but it always served him well before this summer. It’s a postcard-perfect autumn day, from the multicolored foliage in the trees to the sunshine that’s just warm enough to keep you warm without melting you all at the same time.

This is his favorite time of year. Or it should be.

He expects to be nervous. Or unwell. Or any number of negative emotions. But he’s set in his intention for how he’ll spend this day, and he guesses he’s made peace with himself about it. After getting himself ready to face the sea with Derek, over a month ago, this feels like nothing.

He isn’t even nervous.

The windy road that leads from Good Haven to Bar Harbor gives way to a bridge, and he gets his first glimpse at the water, with golden sun reflecting off of it, this little inlet around the island. When he visits his uncles, this part— crossing the bridge, getting that glance at the ocean— it always makes him feel ill. Today, it doesn’t. Today, he’s alright.

He wonders what’s changed.

He makes it all the way to the rocky shore spot he knows so well, without incident. And when the  _ real _ ocean comes into view— not the inlet by the bridge with the island in the way, but the whole thing, huge and in his face, waves against the rocks, almost tranquil in the midday light— he waits for the sky to fall, for his resolve to give out, waits to cave in on himself and realize why this was a terrible idea and that he should go home.

But none of that happens. He parks by the rocks at the edge of a cliff formation; there’s a pathway that leads all the way down to the water. When he gets out of his truck and locks the door, he can smell the saltwater, and he half expects it to choke out his lungs.

It doesn’t.

He takes a deep breath, and stands there, for just a second, at the top of the rocks. This is a spot he knows well— a spot they used to visit all the time, like the place by the lake where he took Derek. He can see a little nook, below, in the dark and rocky sand, where he and Derek would have been able to sit. Not touching, of course, but only sitting— it’s unlikely anyone would have found them there, and they could have talked, or sat in quiet, while Will absorbed the sight 

But Derek is gone now, and all that’s left is the sea.

The ocean took his parents. Time took Derek.

He loses things easily. But here he is, staring down the cause of all his hurt before this summer. And though he thought it wouldn’t be possible, he can breathe.

He starts down toward the water. When he gets there, he wonders if he should take off his shoes, put his feet in it— but that feels like too much, more than he’s sure he’d be able to handle. So instead, he sits. He perches on a rock and watches the waves rolling gently on the shoreline, foam spraying up in his direction but not quite reaching him.

In the strangest way, it’s like seeing an old friend. It’s the opposite of what he thought it might be— where he expected it to be threatening, hurtful, and dark, the mass of water stretched out before him is gentle, shining in the sun and casting golden waves on the shore. If this is the sea that took Pa, then… Pa is in it.

It’s a thought so comforting, he can speak. “Uh… Pa?”

But saying his name hurts, out loud. It’s the first time he’s tried to speak to him in weeks, and he can feel him here, or at least hopes he can, though it’s in a different way than he’s used to feeling his parents back at home.

Oh, who is he kidding. He’s probably crazy. Pa isn’t in the ocean. The ocean took Pa from him. The ocean took his whole family, and then some. It left him alone. He’s more profoundly alone now than he thinks he’s ever been, even before Derek came to town.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Pa, if he’s out there, if he can hear him. “I never… wanted to let you down.”

The sea seems to speak to him— nothing audible, of course, and if he heard something he would be absolutely sure he were going crazy. But it speaks to him still, in this silent way, the way it used to, before everything changed. The way it called him, when he held Ma’s hand on the dock and watched Pa and Uncle Tommy go out to fish. The way it told him he belonged, the one summer he finally got to join them. The way, when Pa would leave for war, it seemed to console Will, on the other side of the world, right up until the day he died.

“I, uh.” He clears his throat. Indifferent, the water keeps on its cycle of the waves. That’s the thing about the ocean; it never changes. That used to comfort him. “I’m not sure why,” he says. “I just… feel I’ve let you down somehow. And I’m sorry for it.”

He used to want to make his life, out of this place.

“I was going to be just like you.” He chuckles a little, a regretful noise that takes him almost by surprise, and adds, “Really, I was. I thought I’d head out here when I turned eighteen. Build a life for myself. Spend more time offshore than on it.”

There’s a lighthouse, way out in the distance. He fixes his eyes on it, a little ghost in the bright daylight. The clouds are golden fluff in the sky.

“But now, I…” He pauses. “I don’t think I’ll ever get out of Good Haven. And… maybe that’s not the worst thing, but…”  _ But Derek asked me to go home with him, and there was this split second in time when I thought about it.  _ “But I dunno, Pa, I just— I wish I knew what you wanted me to do.”

He’s talking nonsense. But at least it’s only the sea that’s listening.

“Would you have left? If you had the choice?” He looks out over the water, toward the horizon, toward the sky. “Left the farm? Moved out here? Moved… anywhere else?”

If you’re born in Good Haven, you die in Good Haven. Such a morbid rule doesn’t really get spoken too often, but Will knows it to be true.

Well, he tells himself. It wasn’t true for Pa. But he has a feeling Pa would rather have died in Good Haven.

Or maybe not.

“I hope—” He pauses. Something catches in his throat, and he wonders if he should even go on talking. But he has to. Did he come all this way not to say anything? “I hope I’m making you proud. I hope I’m doing what you think I should be doing.”

What he knows, but doesn’t say, is that there’s no way to know— not now, not ever— what Pa wants, what would make Pa proud. Pa is at the bottom of the ocean on the other side of the world, and he’s never coming home. Will has asked for enough signs; it’s time to let him rest. To keep him close, always. But to stop asking so often for Pa to show him the way.

You have to be really alone to ask a dead man to show you the way.

“I think maybe it’s just.” He pulls a knee to his chest and takes a long, shaky breath. He can almost taste the salt on his tongue; he feels it clinging to his skin. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go from here. I’m thinking maybe I oughta stop wondering so much about what I  _ should  _ do and just get around to moving on with my life. But it’s hard when— well, when everything is just— when there’s no one to  _ help _ me, Pa. I— I wish you were here.”

_ Now _ he feels a little ill. He presses his forehead to his knee and exhales.

“I wish anyone were here.”

But nobody is. And nobody will be. Will should know this best of all.

All there is, on this beautiful day, is himself and the sea.

*

Before he leaves Bar Harbor, he makes a stop. At the time, it seems like a good idea.

After all, he’s  _ in town _ . He can’t very well leave without paying a visit to his family. He owes them that, he feels, for blowing them off on Independence Day. Maybe, he tells himself as he parks his truck in Uncle Tommy’s driveway, this is when he starts mending his family ties.

Tommy answers when he knocks. “Junior!” His smile is gigantic, and he looks just a little too much like Pa for it not to hurt— but that’s nothing new, and Will sees Pa every time he looks in the mirror nowadays.

Tommy gives him a good, firm handshake, and a smack to the side of his arm. “It’s good to see ya, kid.”

“Sorry I didn’t call,” he says, as Tommy squeezes the life out of his knuckles.

“Aw, nonsense. You’re always welcome.” Tommy is still grinning, and he looks over his shoulder to call back into the house. “Say— Alice, look who’s here!” He turns back to Will, as he hears Aunt Alice respond from somewhere in the house. “Come in, Junior.”

*

He hasn’t been inside Tommy’s house since Christmas last year, but it looks the same. Tommy brings him to the living-room, with its worn green couch and the hand-knit quilt Alice made draped over the back. “Have a seat, Junior,” Tommy says, of the couch. “Can I get’cha anything?”

“Oh— I’m alright.” Will hesitates just a second before sitting down— the couch is comfortable, and always has been, the kind of thing you could take a nap on without even meaning to. “But thank you.”

“‘Course,” Tommy replies, seating himself in the large armchair across the coffee table from him. Alice makes an appearance in the doorway; she’s already greeted and hugged him, but now she’s holding a plate of cookies.

“Thought either of you might be hungry,” she explains, placing it down on the table, and then ruffling Will’s hair with a smile. “It’s so good to see you, Junior.”

“And you as well,” he says, as she sits, too. He realizes, just sitting here, that he’s been bobbing his knee up and down, and stops before they notice and say something. He doesn’t want to act strange. He just…  _ God _ , maybe coming here was a bad idea.

But he’s too far in to turn back now, so when Tommy asks, “How ya been?”, he answers honestly.

“Been better.” He shrugs a little, then braces his elbows on his knees and adds, “I had an… odd sort of summer.”

Tommy grabs a cookie. They’re sugar cookies, by the looks of it, and they look tasty, but Will really shouldn’t; they’ll probably taste like Christmas or something else he doesn’t want to remember. “Whaddaya mean by odd?”

“Oh… well.” He pauses, and takes too long to figure out what he wants to say. He shouldn’t have introduced this topic, but he’s so far past caring that he doesn’t think before he says, “I was… living with someone, and it didn’t work out.”

Tommy arches an eyebrow, like he’s confused, and Alice already looks slightly scandalized. He has to hold back a laugh. Imagine if they knew the truth. “Living with someone?” Alice asks. To her credit, she’s gentle with her words.

“A lover?” Tommy adds, now seeming fiercely curious.

Will doesn’t care, in this moment, that it might be dangerous to say yes. For years, his family have been asking how he’s doing. Now that he has something to tell them, he’s beyond consideration of what that might mean for the way they judge him, the way they think of him. So he nods. “Yes,” he says, and now Alice  _ definitely _ looks scandalized.

“You never told us you were seeing someone,” Tommy says, cautiously. “How come ya didn’t bring her around so we could meet her?”

He doesn’t feel like turning Derek into an imaginary woman. “It only lasted a few months.” A few months, and yet he’ll be thinking about him for the rest of his days.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Junior.” Tommy pauses, and folds his arms before he adds, “You… had her living in your folks’ house?”

Oh. Alright. He’s  _ definitely _ being judged for this, and even though he should have thought it through before letting it slip to his very Irish Catholic family members that he was premaritally cohabitating, being rational hasn’t been his strong suit lately. “Well,” he tells Tommy, “not anymore.”

“Junior,” Alice chastises. “Without being married?”

“Look…” He doesn’t want to get angry. It’s not enough to be angry over. But it hits him on just the right nerve, and he shakes his head. “None of it matters now. He skipped town, so I’m on my own again.”

It takes him a second— several seconds— to realize what he said.

He sees it first on their faces. Tommy’s confusion intensifies further, and Alice fully grimaces, recoiling like she’s caught whiff of a bad scent. She spits the pronoun out like a curse word. “He?”

“Don’tcha mean she?” Tommy says.

He should be panicking. He should feel heart-poundingly, lightheadedly ill. He should backpedal, and agree with Tommy; he should just admit it was a grammatical mistake, not an allusion to the truth about himself he hasn’t admitted to a soul besides Derek and Kenny all twenty-five years of his life.

But he is tired, and this is his  _ family _ , and he hopes, for just the briefest second, a fatal moment of weakness, that they might impossibly understand.

“No, uh…” He looks between Tommy and Alice. They have to understand. Family first, right? They’ve promised him so many times that they’re here for him. “I meant he.”

Tommy’s eyes darken, and Alice’s disgust remains. “ _ Junior _ ,” he whispers, like Will has just confessed to a murder. “You can’t be serious.”

Again, he could backpedal here. But looking between his uncle and his aunt, Tommy’s reaction charges him with  _ more _ frustration— because of course they think he can’t be serious. He’s supposed to be a good Catholic boy. He’s supposed to be what’s expected of him, and everything he did with Derek this summer defied every small-town expectation. He doesn’t regret it, not for a second. The guilt will always be there, but Derek helped him believe that it was okay to be who he is, that it’s not shameful, that there’s a place for him— even if it’s sixty years into the future.

“Actually,” he says, plainly, “I am serious.”

“ _ Will _ ,” Alice says. “A good boy like you?”

Tommy shakes his head. It’s classic disappointment, and Will’s stomach feels like it wants to eat itself from the inside out in shame. “What would your folks say?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, deadpans, almost. All these years, he’s been hiding this truth under lock and key, and now that he sees the disappointment in their eyes, he doesn’t care at all anymore to keep it a secret— at least not from them. “I like to think they would’ve been alright with it.”

“They most certainly wouldn’t be,” Alice replies. “Junior, your ma was the most God-fearing woman—”

“I know who my ma was,” he interrupts her. “I knew her perfectly well.”

“How could you make that choice, then?” She almost looks on the verge of tears, like the truth about him is breaking her heart. “She’d be so disappointed—”

“She’d be disgusted is what she’d be,” Tommy replies. His whole expression has gone dark, every ounce of warmth faded like summer turning to autumn. “And your pa with her. Junior, you know better.”

“There’s no choice I made,” Will replies. He feels red in the face, in the ears. “I’ve always been this way.”

“You have  _ not _ ,” Alice replies. “You were a perfectly normal little boy—”

“Was I?” he says, and he feels his anger rising. “Or did you just see me how you wanted to? How everyone wanted me to?”

“Junior,  _ where _ is this coming from?” Tommy asks. “You can’t expect us to believe you just up and changed into some kind of— some kind of queer?”

Will recoils. He has heard this word— knows full well what it means, from crude jokes among high school acquaintances to talk around town about Kenny. Derek used it as an adjective, not an insult; he said it in a positive light, called it a reclaimed term. To hear it so contemptuously from his own family, though, is a slap in the face; his stomach turns in on itself, and he bites back the bubbling anger, the outburst that wants to escape him. “It isn’t my fault,” he says.

Which is such a useless thing to say, to be honest, because even though it isn’t, Tommy and Alice are never going to believe that. And the way they look at him now— like he should be taken out with the garbage— is enough to make him regret this entire endeavor, coming to their house at all. Tommy shakes his head. “Can’t imagine what your pa would think about that,” he says. “I thought better of you, Junior.”

He can’t stay here. All the panic he should have felt when he started this conversation, or hell, when he came to the ocean today— all of it reaches him at once. His heart starts beating out of his chest, and he’s fuming, and he can’t stay here. He puts his hands on his knees. “I think I oughta go.”

Tommy nods. His eyes are narrow, and Will has never seen someone look at him with so much contempt and disgust all at once. “Yeah,” he replies, almost spits. “I think you oughta.”

They don’t say goodbye. They don’t even walk him to the door. Without another word, Will leaves. He gets in his truck in their driveway, and drives all the way home, without looking back.

It’s like losing his family all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of this story is officially written out! [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, where, among other things, you can find [ the update schedule for the remaining chapters.](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/623405222497320960/love-finds-you-update-schedule)


	43. envy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the last chapter, I feel the need to apologize for slandering Uncle Tommy Poindexter's character. He's actually one of my favorite Dex relatives in [the CCU, a canon-universe series of mine](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622695). Unfortunately, living 60 years in the past in this AU means he's a lot more homophobic.  
> Anyway, have fun with this chapter; it's a doozie.

_ i feel the ghost of your lips on mine _

_ phantom hands linger on skin _

_ those summer days, not long ago _

_ and yet _

_ so far away _

_ \- a memory i will hold onto _

*

_ Day 41 without Will _

_ September 2nd, 2021 _

Derek has grown the opposite of fond of being alone in crowded places.

Well, okay. It’s not really like his favorite café is  _ that _ crowded today. It has a decent-sized crowd, but it’s not really any different from the normal level of ‘crowded’ that this place is. He thinks it’s more his placement in the actual room. He made his way here for lunch, after his morning class— because thank God, classes for his doctoral program are back in session, and even though they only meet a few times a week, it still gives him something very concrete to be doing with himself. So aside from working on stuff with Jayda, and the occasional editing stint that gets forwarded to him from the summer publishing house, his work, right now, is all for his dissertation. It’s a breath of fresh air, honestly, because the summer was getting far, far too long. He did, after all, do the summer twice over.

But now autumn is coming. His favorite season. And he’s in classes again, with work that gets assigned to him, and endless research piled up on his to-do list.

It’s a little harder to be sad, when you’re busy. It’s easy to be  _ tired _ , and all the negative byproducts of exhaustion come pretty easily. But sad? That’s a different emotional state.

Derek is  _ good _ at distractions.

Which is why he’s grateful to be back in school. And which is why he’s really, really regretting that he chose to get lunch at this café today.

It’s his favorite place to grab food near school, so it’s not like he’s never been here. He has a usual table by the window, and some avocado toast with a latte, and it’s not so much a functional lunch as it is something of a snack, but it works for him. He sets up his laptop and cracks open his latest library rental, and he’s set to get some work done.

Except the thing is… there’s a couple at the next table over.

And look, it’s not their fault they’re a couple. It’s not their fault that they’re obviously on a date, and that they’re canoodling, because while it’s clear romantic behavior, it’s not obnoxious or anything. It’s two guys, probably his age or maybe just a little younger, and he wouldn’t be paying attention to them except for the fact that a.) they look so happy that it’s making him sad, and b.) he vaguely, like…  _ recognizes _ them?

Or at least he recognizes the one guy. On the side of the table that’s closer to his seat sits this  _ huge _ dude, who has to be taller than even Derek himself, and is a lot bulkier, too. He has brown skin, but he’s definitely not Black— Central American, maybe? And his hair is curly, too, but it’s looser than Derek’s own. Derek feels, very distantly, like he  _ knows  _ this guy— definitely not personally, but just that he’s seen him somewhere. He finds the possible source of recognition in his jacket. It’s a New York Rangers windbreaker, in bright, royal blue. There’s no mistaking his favorite team’s logo, embroidered on its sleeve.

Derek pauses. Is this guy one of their prospects? This is his team and he should know this, but pro hockey, aside from Chowder’s side of things, hasn’t exactly been at the forefront of his mind lately. He  _ thinks  _ this is where he knows the guy. From the NYR Instagram or something.

But anyway. The guy’s eyes are all for his date, who is this pint-sized, white dude who straddles the hair-color line between ginger and blond. He has freckles, but just light ones, nothing like Will’s mass of them, and he’s wearing a blue scarf. Derek thinks he recognize him from, like, Broadway or something, but maybe he’s just stereotyping him based on the way he looks. He has a little flush in his cheeks, looking back at his giant hockey dude date.

But it’s like, it doesn’t  _ matter _ where they’re from. What matters is that they’re together, and Derek is just…  _ ugh. _

The hockey guy is holding both of the scarf guy’s hands across the table, and he’s talking to him, but Derek isn’t really in earshot nor would he care to eavesdrop if he were. They’re both smiling like idiots, and they just look  _ happy _ . Derek is not a cynical person, but there’s something about this that tempts him to be.

It’s like, when you’re trying to get over an ex, and then something  _ happens _ , something completely out of your control, like you hear a song that used to make you think of them, or you see their favorite snack in the grocery store, or something  _ fucking stupid _ like you see another MLM couple in public and for some reason that just makes you  _ think _ of him, which is  _ stupid _ , because this is  _ New York _ , and gay people are all over—

And yet here he is, in this stupid café, where he came to get some avocado toast and some peace, and he’s thinking about Will again.

Because it’s like… this couple, whoever they are, whatever their story is, they just get to  _ be _ . They get to sit here, at this table, in public, holding hands and smiling at each other and flirting, and they’re together, and nobody with a shred of tolerance or basic human decency in them is paying them a second glance about it. They get to be everything he and Will never would have been, and they get to be that here, and now, without fear enough to keep them from being.

And, like, God, Derek is happy that things are the way they are here. That life has improved from what he and Will knew, as a couple, in Good Haven. That there  _ does _ come a time when there’s a place for them, and that people like this random couple in the café can be together and that’s okay because that’s just the way things are.

But sitting here, watching these two guys, Derek knows that they’re experiencing something Will will never have. He wonders how much they think about the people who came before them, who don’t get to hold hands at a public table, to smile at each other like that for the world to see. How much  _ anyone _ thinks about those people.

It’s not that he  _ ignored _ queer history before he met Will. It’s just that now, on the other side of it, he realizes how much more open he can be, in this time, than he ever could have been back then.

Even when you strip away all the stuff about being a couple in public, though. He  _ misses _ Will. He sees couples in public all the time, but today these two catch him at apparently just the right part of his day to cause a little spiral into the heartache.

Scarf guy throws his head back and laughs at something hockey guy said, and hockey guy grins like the only thing he’s ever wanted to accomplish in the whole world is make him laugh. It makes Derek think of Will, behind the counter at Annie’s, in stitches the day that he tripped over nothing and fell. Or the night of their first date, when he really got him going with all his klutz stories. The way his face flushed bright red, highlighting every freckle, and his dimples creased as he laughed. The way his laugh could fill an entire room at full volume, a noise Derek only ever heard when evoked by himself.

It was his favorite sound.

He opens Google, then closes his tab. He does this three entire separate times, then looks over again at the possible NHL prospect with his tiny boyfriend, both of whom are so much happier than he is right now.

He wonders where  _ Will _ is right now.

He opens Google again, and under the influence of some very stupid over-emotional heartache, types into the search bar.

_ william poindexter good haven maine _

The search gives him a U.S. Navy directory, for registry during World War II, and below that, a list of deceased World War II veterans from Maine. There’s something about a fishery, and a Bar Harbor Historical Society article on the Korean War. He’s confused for a second until he realizes that Will and his pa had the same name, and he’s getting results about  _ him _ , not Will himself.

Also, his heart is beating very quickly, like when you’re about to get to the part in the book you’re reading that you’ve been waiting for for so many chapters, and it’s stressing you out. Except this is stressing him out a  _ lot _ more than reading a book ever has. He’s in this now, and there’s no going back. He amends his search.

_ william poindexter jr good haven maine _

But this one, again, gets him more about Will’s pa. He even finds his obituary, from 1950, which describes his rank in the Navy and his World War II veteranship and the fact that he’s survived by two brothers, his wife, and their 15-year-old son, William Junior. Derek scours the page, but he can’t find anything  _ about _ Will himself.

He tries again.

_ william j poindexter jr good haven maine dec 10 1935 _

The first result,  _ finally _ , is actually about Will.

He immediately regrets this entire Google search saga.

_ William Poindexter, Jr, a lifelong resident of Good Haven, Maine, died at home on November 3rd, 1993, at the age of 57, after a prolonged illness. Born December 10th, 1935, Will was a loving son and friend, as well as a beloved waiter at Annie’s Diner in downtown Good Haven. He was fond of fishing and upholding his generational family farm, and he will be missed by his Annie’s family and longtime friend Kent Parson. A memorial mass will be held at Saint Raphael Parish in Good Haven on Monday, November 8th. Will will be laid to rest with his parents in Old Park Cemetery. _

Derek stares at the screen for a long, long time.

There’s a photo attached— there’s Will, his Will, and though he’s at least a decade or two older in the photo than Derek ever knew him, it’s still him, and his smile doesn’t look like a genuine Will smile but  _ God _ , he’s  _ there _ , and—

And he’s dead.

Which, okay. Derek should have expected this. But it doesn’t stop his hands from shaking now that he finally knows, and to read that he died so fucking  _ young _ , at fifty-seven, at home by himself, no doubt, and  _ Jesus _ , he’s been gone for almost thirty years, longer than Derek has even been alive, and he  _ left _ him there, to die alone, and he—

He can’t breathe. He tries, so earnestly, but he can’t stay chill despite his best efforts, and even though he’s pretty sure it’s not  _ obvious _ that he’s having anxiety over in the corner at this little table with his laptop, he feels like the whole café is spinning and he’s going to lose his balance in his chair and fall through the floor.

Will is dead, and he should have known. It’s one of the most minimal, saddest obituaries he’s ever read, mostly because there’s no  _ he is survived by _ , and this describes exactly the Will he knew, which means Will never really got to grow— not that he needed to change, because  _ God _ , Derek loved him, still loves him, just the way he was when he knew him, but he can’t believe he  _ died alone at 57 _ —

But would he have felt better, looking at this, if there had been some kind of line about a partner? Derek isn’t sure. It feels selfish to think that a partner would have been weird to read about, but Will was 25 when he last saw him and he got 32 more years, and Derek can’t fathom the heart-wrenching idea that he spent all 32 of those years  _ by himself _ , and he just—

_ God _ . He closes out of the tab. He can’t look at that picture of him anymore. He pushes his laptop away from himself and rests his face, very gently, in both hands. The date conversation between the couple at the next table is white noise, and it’s way too wholesome for his liking right now. He wants to crawl under a blanket and forget that Google search ever existed. How could he have been so fucking  _ stupid _ . Did he really think anything good was going to come out of looking up his name?

But shit, maybe he did. Maybe there was this tiny part of him that hoped that Will was still going to be alive, just living as a super old man on his farm up in Good Haven, and maybe Derek could, like, go visit him, which, yeah, would have been really weird because he’s still 25 and Will would be, like, 86 right now, but at least he would have gotten to see him, to tell him he loves him, that he’s sorry.

He’ll never get to do any of that, now that he knows. That hope is safely squashed, along with all the others to do with him.

Will is gone. He left him in the century he belongs, and he’s gone.

Derek’s brain hurts.

He tries, in vain, to click through the dissertation tabs he has open. His computer, during the school year, is always cursed with at least five different browser tabs open at all times. But when he tries to read his articles and draft notes, words on the screen barely register. His brain is elsewhere, wallowing in the discovery he just made.

He minimizes his browser, looks at his island-scape wallpaper, and takes a long breath, in through his nose, and out through his mouth.

He thinks maybe he should consider seeing his old therapist, to talk about grieving. But then again, if he started talking about time travel with his therapist, she might think he’s crazy.

There has to be  _ something _ . Some evidence of Will’s life, somebody who knew him, someone he can talk to, to find out if he was at least  _ happy _ , if he was okay, if he was at peace—

Wait.

He reopens his browser, opens Google again, does  _ not _ go back to the obituary page, and types.

_ kent parson good haven maine _

It takes a  _ lot _ of weeding through irrelevant articles, one of which is a repeat instance of Will’s obituary, but he doesn’t find any kind of memorial material for Kent like he found for Will, which implies he’s still living. Which motivates him enough to keep going through the depths of the Internet, because Kent has to be out there  _ somewhere _ , right? Even if he’s old as fuck.

And then— he thinks he finds him. On WhitePages, of all places. His phone number and other detailed information are hidden, but there’s a Kent Mashkov-Parson, born July 1935 in Good Haven, Maine, living in Las Vegas. Which… he has absolutely no idea why Kent would be living in Las Vegas. Or why he would change his last name. But it’s something. It’s a start.

He writes down his address and saves it for later, and then, without paying attention to the pound of grief in his head or the couple at the table next to him or the way the world feels like it could cave in on him, he gets back to his research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I.... am sorry.  
> This fic is not tagged with the "major character death" warning because a.) if you haven't noticed, there is time travel, which can and will impact the information you learn in this chapter, and also b.) no one in any timeline is dying onscreen. Hang in there.... we're still in angst town, but we won't be here forever.  
> Also, yes, that was who you think it was in the cafe.  
> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you please, and also, if you want to know the update schedule for the rest of this story, [you can find it here](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/623405222497320960/love-finds-you-update-schedule).


	44. vegas, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the home stretch! Have a generous dose of Good Haven!Kent Parson content.

_ Day 63 without Will _

_ September 24th, 2021 _

You can’t just go to Vegas on a whim.

Well, no. You  _ can _ . It’s just that that situation would require a number of pre-existing circumstances to be in place, including a.) having the time, b.) having a plan, and c.) having the money. Derek doesn’t really have any of those things, except the time, if weekends count as time. And even if he had the plan or the money, he’s decided that he should swear off spontaneous solo vacations, at least for a little while.

So he can’t go to Vegas to find Kent. Alone.

But he happens to have a best friend who plays in the NHL.

He calls up Chowder.

*

It takes a lot of convincing. Like, a  _ lot _ of convincing. Apparently, calling up your (married, pro hockey player) best friend and being like  _ hey dude lol soooooo Vegas next weekend?  _ is a slightly concerning course of action to take. But he explains to Chowder what he wants to do— namely, visit Kent, and find out what happened to Will that he died so young, and figure out if there’s any way he can retroactively fix it, which he probably can’t, but it’s worth a  _ shot _ , right? He’s the one who accidentally time traveled. Which means this would not be the craziest thing he’s done in recent history.

And then after he explains all of that, Chowder raises a number of points, including:  _ Nursey, I know you really loved this guy, but you have to realize that if he’s gone now, there’s nothing you can do  _ and  _ do you think there’s something you could find with this Kent guy that will give you peace?  _ and  _ is this going to help your mental state or make it worse? _

But Derek really, really wants to have a conversation with Kent. And he knows Chowder can help him. He swears up, down, and every which way that he’ll make it up to him, but Chowder doesn’t need that kind of compensation, because Chowder is the only good person ever to exist.  _ Okay,  _ he says, finally, after thirty minutes of Derek’s petitioning and bartering.  _ I can meet you there next weekend, but promise me this is going to help you and not make you feel worse. _

_ I promise _ , he says, and then eight days later, after his last Friday class, he boards a plane at JFK and meets Chowder five hours later at McCarran International Airport. No accidental time travel required.

(Which is a big win for him.)

Chowder is a sight for sore eyes. He’s in a generic gray t-shirt, but apparently seems not to have been able to resist the temptation of teal in some form on his body, because the forward-facing hat he wears is a Sharks one. It’s kind of funny, actually, the apparent indecision between whether he wants to hide in the airport crowds or be recognized for who he is.

Derek grins at him, and it’s the first smile in weeks that hasn’t felt forced or artificial. He opens his arms and asks, “Sign any autographs on the way over here?”

Chowder chuckles into the hug, and they stay there for a long time, in the middle of the terminal, because  _ God _ , Derek missed his best friend. He knows it’s technically been two months or something, but he’s been apart from Chowder for nearly half a year. “No,” Chowder says, head bowed into his shoulder. Derek holds on tight. He adds, “Missed you, Nursey.”

“I missed you, too, dude,” he replies, and then, with one more squeeze, they break the hug so Chowder can pick his overnight bag up. Derek’s only bag is his backpack, which is maybe a poor decision, but it has two changes of clothes and toiletries and a notebook and what else do you need, really. “Which way are we going?” he asks him.

Chowder looks around, squinting at airport signs, and then nods to himself before he points to their left. “Cabs are on the ground floor.”

“ _ Chill _ ,” Derek replies, and turns to go, and then immediately crashes head-on into another human being, who promptly stumbles and drops his bag. “ _ Fuck _ ,” Derek says, like a reflex. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” the guy says, in a mega French accent. He’s already gathering his bag, like somehow he’s been prepared for this encounter. He slings it over his shoulder, a duffel, and he’s making the move to go when he sort of stops, squints, and then says, “Chris?”

Chowder looks to the guy, and then grins and goes, “Wait, no way! Hi!”

“Hi,” says the guy. He’s super pale, with blue eyes and blond hair, and wait, holy shit, that’s an NHL player. He’s on the Aces; Derek recognizes him. “How, uh…” The guy squints, like he’s confused to see Chowder here. “How are you?”

“I’m great!” Chowder replies. “I got married this summer. How was your off-season?”

“Congratulations,” Aces guy says, with a small smile. “And mine was very good. I was at home, mostly.”

“I’ll see you soon, huh?” Chowder mimes putting up his dukes. “Two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” the Ace echoes, which must be how long a time remains until the Sharks and the Aces play each other. “I’ll have to be practicing, to get something past you.”

“Ooh, I’d like to see you try!” Chowder chirps, and the Ace laughs. Derek has no idea what’s happening, but also, his best friend is a natural charismatic.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” Ace says, looking between them, like he knows they’re going somewhere. “It was nice to see you,” he tells Chris, and Chowder bids him goodbye before he’s on his way to wherever he’s going.

As they’re walking away, Derek glances to Chowder, who grins and points over his shoulder at the disappearing Ace. “What are the odds, right?”

“Is that…” Derek pauses. “Is that just how things are in the NHL? You attract each other in airports?”

Chowder laughs. “I’ve gone to All-Stars with him two years in a row now. You know him, right?”

“Vaguely,” he replies, and they continue on their way through the airport.

The NHL is wild.

“Okay, Nursey,” Chowder says, as they’re getting into the cab. “We both came all the way here, so you had better know how to find this guy.”

*

_ Day 56 without Derek _

_ October 21st, 1961 _

It’s cold outside, but whiskey warms Will up.

The bar is crowded, or at least it feels crowded to him; it’s Saturday night, or maybe past midnight on Sunday, by now. He can’t tell. The world has grown a little fuzzy, a little hazy, and he knows that Lukas, the bartender, probably shouldn’t still be serving him, but he is. He doesn’t know it, but at home, his phone has been ringing off the hook for almost an hour straight. Will has lost track of the time, and the drinks, and most importantly, the hurt.

That’s why he made his way here, after work. It’s the same reason he made his way here the first time his head was hurting this badly, and every time since then. He knows it’s not only about his head, but the headache and the heartache seem to bleed into each other, exist simultaneously.

He should be over Derek. Derek has been gone for almost two months. Will’s life has gone on as normal, and he knows it’ll go on like this indefinitely, just the same as it was before Derek came to town. Nothing has changed. The only thing that’s different is that he has all this memory— everything that used to exist, and doesn’t anymore. He has an entire summer of good to recall, at times he least wants to recall it. When he closes his eyes, all he can see is a beautiful smile and curly hair and warm, tattooed brown skin. All he can remember feeling is comfort and peace, the closeness of laying in bed with him, of coming home to him after a long day. All there is, at the back of his mind, is Derek, and his gentle voice.  _ Come home with me, Will. _

It was too good to be true. Summer has ended, and autumn is here, and winter is coming with all its cold and all its glum. Will was alone, and then he wasn’t, and he’s alone again. So he drinks.

And there’s a part of him that  _ knows _ he shouldn’t drink, but it’s so much easier to wander here after work and drown the hurt than to spend nights alone in his house, the house that’s felt so empty for the past two-some months that it’s almost suffocating him.

He quit drinking because of Derek. He didn’t want him to judge him, to think he was a drunk, a low-life. But Derek is gone, and Will doesn’t care anymore. He has no one left to impress, no one to be good for.

So he drinks. And it helps. At least until he wakes up the next morning, in an awful fog with a pounding headache, and the heartbreak feels new again. But tonight, he doesn’t care about that, pays the morning no mind. Tonight, he’s listening to Lukas’ jukebox and trying not to let the music remind him too much of dancing with Derek in the kitchen. Tonight, he’s not thinking about how much he hates the taste of whiskey, only the fact that it burns when it goes down, which is easier to focus on than the way everything hurts inside. Tonight, none of it matters.

Until Kent comes storming through the bar’s front door.

Will doesn’t notice him, at first. He hears someone come in, but he’s in too much of a blissful haze to care to turn and see who it is. Lukas notices, because he gives a little nod to the new customer, and that’s when Will hears him, before he actually sees him.

“William James Poindexter, where the fuck have you been.”

His best friend’s voice cuts through the fog in his head. He turns in his stool, just in time to see Kent, fuming and still in his diner uniform, crossing the bar to approach him. “Kenny!” he cries, with a shaky smile. “Come sit.” He smacks the top of the stool directly next to him. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Absolutely not,” Kent says, as he comes to a stop in front of him. He looks  _ angry _ , Will registers, distantly, but he can’t make himself care. “You’re coming with me.”

“Why?” He grins at him still. He can’t really think straight, but he doesn’t want Kent to leave. “Stay awhile!”

“ _ No _ ,” Kent says. His face is flushed red, and Will has no idea why he’s so upset. “Let’s go, Will,” he says. “I’ve been turning the town upside down looking for you.”

Will laughs. It’s a funny thought— the whole town turning upside down. “How come?” he asks, pointing to himself, to show Kenny he’s okay. “I’m right here, safe ‘n’ sound.”

“And that’s exactly the problem.” Kent grabs his elbow, and his grip is very tight. “Let’s go.”

Will gazes toward the bar, where his glass, refilled who knows how many times tonight, still has whiskey in it. “I haven’t finished my drink,” he points out, and then shakes his elbow out of Kent’s grip. “Don’t be a drag, Kenny.”

“ _ Now _ , Will.” Kent’s hand returns to his arm as quickly as Will took it away. “You’re not staying here.”

“Kenny.” He bites back another laugh. He can’t remember the last time he saw Kenny this pressed, especially over nothing. He looks around the bar, to the other patrons, a few of which are watching them like something is interesting. “You’re making a scene,” Will informs him.

“I’m serious,” Kent replies. He jerks at his arm a little. “We’re going.”

Will rolls his eyes and turns in his stool, toward the bar. “You’re being a real ass, you know that?” he replies, and reaches to take a sip from his glass.

Before he can, though, Kent borderline smacks it out of his hand. “Hey!” he cries, maybe yells. The only reason he doesn’t drop and shatter it is because Kent takes it before he can, and the liquid splashes all over his hand, money wasted.

Kent shoves the glass toward Lukas, who has been eyeing them from a few feet away like he’s either confused or entertained, and he can’t figure out which he wants to be. “Shoulda cut him off hours ago,” Kent spits.

“Uh, sorry,” Lukas replies, taking the glass and going to wipe it off. Will frowns. That was his drink! “Didn’t know you were in charge of him,” Lukas says to Kent, with raised eyebrows.

“Oh, bug off, Lukas,” Kent replies.

Will swivels to face Kent again, but he feels unsteady even sitting down. “What was that for?”

“Let’s go.” Kent yanks at his arm, and he near falls off his stool, and decides through the confusion and headache that he isn’t winning this argument with Kent. “Now.”

“Alright, alright.” He stumbles off of his stool, straightens himself out, and leaves a tip on the counter for Lukas. “Christ,” he mumbles, and when the world stops spinning, he gives way to Kenny’s dragging and heads for the door. “Better be important.”

*

_ Day 64 without Will _

_ September 25th, 2021 _

Kent Mashkov-Parson lives in an apartment complex in downtown Las Vegas.

Derek has absolutely no idea, not even a faint one, what Kent is doing in Nevada. It’s hot and dry, even on what he’s pretty sure would be a really nice fall day back home, and the hotel Chowder has gotten them a room in is pretty nice (because duh, NHL money) but everything else about this city feels vaguely artificial to Derek, like it’s just a façade meant for tourists to waste their money on. He knows that’s probably just the product of a lifetime of only seeing Vegas through stereotypical movies and other media, but being here doesn’t feel that far off.

And anyway, gambling is not his goal. He was weighing the possibility of going to a casino with Chowder tonight, just to say he did, but then again, that’s probably not the best idea given the level of sad boy hours he’s been having for the past two months. Also, if this visit goes well— or worse, if it goes badly and blows up in his face— he isn’t sure he’s going to be in the mood for a Vegas party tonight.

He and Chowder catch a cab to the address he found on WhitePages. “Do you think it’s weird to just…” He pauses, watching the sad-looking streets pass by the window. The seats in the cab are dirty, and it’s nasty. “Show up at someone’s apartment?”

“A little,” Chowder replies, in a mumble. “But so is time-traveling.”

He’s right.

They resolved, during their long game-plan setup last night in the hotel room, that Derek has to do this alone. Chowder has staked out a Starbucks one block down the street to hole up in, lest he get in trouble or something, and then the headlines on NHL gossip blogs tomorrow morning say  _ Sharks Star Goaltender Chris Chow Arrested For Loitering In Las Vegas _ . Those fuckers know everything, somehow.

Anyway. Derek has to do this alone, and he’s nervous. His hands are sort of shivering in his lap, and he tries to sit on them to quell the feeling. It doesn’t work, so he takes a long breath. Chowder nudges him in the leg, concern in his eyes. “You okay?”

He bites his lip, and tries to breathe again. “As okay as I’m getting.”

Chowder nods. “I’m here,” he says, and Derek has never been more grateful for him.

When they pull up outside the building from the address on WhitePages, Derek looks up at it through the window. It’s just your standard apartment complex, a bunch of stories high, with little balconies for each window cell. It doesn’t even look that different from the high-rise he lives in back home.

God, he really hopes he didn’t come all this way for nothing.

“Text me when you’re done?” Chowder asks, as he’s getting out of the cab. “And be careful.”

“I will be.” He won’t die of an anxiety attack before he even reaches Kent’s front door. “Thanks, C.”

The sidewalk seems like it could melt, it’s so hot outside. As he watches the cab drive off toward the Starbucks, he turns to face the door to get into the building and takes a giant breath.

This was such a stupid idea, but so has pretty much every idea he’s had over the past, well, half a year.

He takes the elevator in the building— which, thank God, is air conditioned— up to the ninth floor, and stops in front of apartment 9B. He feels, very suddenly as he stands there, like a gigantic stalker. He sort of  _ is _ a stalker, isn’t he? He looked someone up online and took a plane flight to show up at their door.

But he’s here now, and he’s doing this, and there’s no turning back.

He knocks. For at least twenty seconds, there’s no answer, and he starts to realize that he really should have planned this out, because what if Kent isn’t home? What if this is an outdated address? What if it’s the wrong person entirely, and it was an Internet error that it looked like it was him?

What if Kent is dead, too, gone just like Will, and he just wasn’t able to find evidence of it?

But just as he’s spiraling, the doorknob twists, and someone inside pulls it open about halfway.

It’s not Kent. Even in old age, he thinks he’d be able to recognize him, and this definitely isn’t him. The man who answers the door is old, for sure, but he has blue eyes and a tall, bulky figure, nothing like Kent’s stature. His hair is gray, and he’s pretty wrinkly, but his skin is pale and his expression is uneasy, and it’s just definitely  _ not _ Kent Parson. “Hello,” he says, and even the one word clues Derek into a super heavy accent.

“Uh, hi.” He definitely should have called ahead or something. “Uh.”  _ Stay chill. You’re not a stalker. Mostly.  _ “Does Kent live here?”

The man looks over his shoulder, into the apartment, and squints as he looks back at him. “You’re… wanting Kent?” His accent is Eastern European, maybe Russian, and Derek wonders if he maybe doesn’t speak English.

“Yes.” He pauses, holds his own.  _ Please don’t tell me to fuck off.  _ “I’m… an old friend.”

“Old friend,” the man echoes.

“Derek,” he supplies, before he remembers that Kent didn’t really call him by his actual name. “Uh… curly. I’m ‘curly’.”

“Curly?” This poor old man sounds so, so confused.

Fuck.  _ Fuck _ . Derek has been here all of two minutes, and he’s already messing this up royally. “Look, uh… I’m sorry,” he says. “I just— well, Kent knows me. Or he knew me. I’m not sure if he remembers me.”

The man nods, but he still looks absolutely perplexed. At least he doesn’t really look  _ alarmed _ — more just like Derek is growing a second head.

“I was, uh,” he adds. “A friend of Will Poi—”

“Lexi?”

This is a new voice, from within the apartment, and though it’s worn by obvious age, it’s  _ much _ more familiar to Derek. The Russian man looks over his shoulder, and the voice continues, “Everything alright out here?”, as Kent, in the flesh, pushes forward and steps into Derek’s sight line.

He may be old, but it’s  _ very much _ him. He’s in a pink bowling shirt like the ones he always wore at the diner, and he’s using a cane to walk. His eyes are still bright gray-green, and his hair has grayed, but the cowlicks Derek remembers are just as prominent now as they were sixty years ago. Thank  _ God _ . Derek almost wants to cry, all of a sudden, before he remembers that he still has to explain to Kent what the actual fuck he’s doing at his apartment, sixty years since he last saw him.

“Well, well, well,” Kent says, slowly, with this little smile that echoes the hundreds he must have seen on him over the course of his summer in Good Haven. “If it isn’t pretty boy.”

Derek is shaking on his feet. “Hey, Kent.”

The Russian man looks to Kent. “You’re knowing him?” This must, Derek realizes, be his husband. A quick glance confirms they’re both wearing wedding bands on their old, bony hands.

Kent nods to him. “Oh, I know him, alright.” He pauses for a long time, like he’s contemplating, and then reaches for the door handle. Derek thinks, for a split second, that the door to 9B is about to be shut in his face, and that’ll be the end of it, and he came all this way for nothing. But Kent pulls it open all the way, looking something like intrigued, and says, “Come in, curly.”

Derek does, and Kent shuts the door behind him. The apartment is modest, with a wilting houseplant hanging in its biggest kitchen window. There’s an ashtray at the center of the coffee table, and a few pictures on the walls. “I’d ask you what you’re doing here,” Kent says, “but I figure you’re going to tell me.”

A cat slinks around Derek’s feet, purring like it wants attention. “I’d like to,” he says to Kent, “if you were willing to hear it.”

“I’ll hear it.” Kent pauses, shifting his weight on his cane, and then adds, “Although I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do for you.”

“Well, I appreciate that.” It’s so much better than nothing at all.

There’s a brief pause, and then Kent seems to realize that there’s an elephant in the room, in the form of the confused Russian man eyeing Derek like he’s an alien from outer space. Derek knows that look, and often resents it— but he’s pretty sure the man is more confused about his husband’s link to some random hipster from New York in a green hat than racist.

“Alexei, sweetheart, this is Derek,” Kent says, then sweeps his hand between the two of them, as Alexei squints down at him. “Derek, this is my husband, Alexei.”

Alexei shakes his hand, thank God looking slightly less confused. “It’s nice meeting you.”

“You, too,” Derek replies.

“Derek was…” He watches Kent study him, like he’s trying to figure out how to explain his relationship to him when Alexei clearly has no idea who he is. “We met many moons ago,” Kent settles on, finally, and Alexei nods.

Kent takes a long breath, and Derek feels so painfully awkward for a second, so out of place in and intrusive in this smoke-smelling, sunny apartment, until Kent turns to him and says, “Did you come all the way here from New York just to talk to me?”

“What if I did?” he replies.

Kent huffs. “Well, that’s what I’m asking.”

“I just…”  _ God _ , he’s such a cringey idiot. “I was hoping I’d be able to find you.”

“How long you been looking?”

“A few weeks.”

Kent leans on his cane, arching his gray eyebrows. “How long you been home?”

Derek pauses. He sighs. “Two months.”

“Huh,” Kent offers, as his witty response, and then takes another second to rake the cowlicks back on his head. He always used to do that, Derek remembers, when he was wearing his Annie’s hat. “Well,” he says, “come in. We’ll talk.”

“Thank you, Kent.” Okay. This isn’t going awfully.

“Don’t mention it.” Kent pauses, then flashes that old, charming smile Derek saw every day at the Annie’s host stand and adds, “You did come across the country to see me, after all.”

*

_ October 21st, 1961 _

The parking lot is windy and cold, and Will can’t quite stay steady. The one thing he knows is that he’s  _ mad _ at Kenny— he had no right to drag him out of there like that, like he was some kid getting in trouble at school. He whirls on them, as soon as they’re outside the bar, and asks, “Now, what in the hell was that all about?”

Kenny looks two seconds away from some kind of explosion, like he might pop a gasket without warning. “I’ve been looking  _ everywhere _ for you, you narrow-minded shit!”

Will gestures, or maybe just waves his hand, toward the bar they just emerged from and replies, “Well, you didn’t have to go and make a scene about it!”

“It’s a little tough not to when you’ve been looking all over for your  _ best friend _ and you find him drunk out of his mind—”

“I’m not drunk,” Will protests, and then the asphalt tilts underneath him, and he stumbles, trying to regain his footing on level ground. “Not— that drunk.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Kent says, with a roll of his eyes, and then steps forward and sort of  _ shoves _ him, which— Will is so angry he feels like his ears are pounding, but maybe that’s just because of the liquor. “Do you ever think maybe there are people who care whether or not you’re drowning your sorrows in fucking whiskey, Will?”

“What are you,” he slurs, “my babysitter?”

“No, I’m your best friend, you idiot,” Kent shouts. “And lately, it hasn’t felt like it, because you barely say two words to me at work, and then I go looking for you and I find you  _ here _ —”

“Gee  _ whiz _ — I’m  _ sorry _ , Kenny!” he says, even though he really has no idea, not even a little, what he’s apologizing for. “What do ya want me to do, call you with my every move? I’m a grown fucking man; I can drink if I want to—”

“ _ Christ _ , Dexy, I thought you were done with this.” There’s something strained in Kent’s voice, something almost heartbroken, and Will is too gone to care. “I thought— I thought I wasn’t going to have to do this anymore.”

“Do what?” Will shouts. “Come and pick me up at the bar? I didn’t  _ ask _ you to come, d’ya know that? I don’t even know why you went looking for me—”

“How ‘bout to make sure you’re  _ alive _ , Will?” he says. “I mean,  _ God _ , you’re like a ghost at work, and how am I supposed to know what goes on when you’re home at night? When I couldn’t find you, I thought— I thought you  _ did _ something—”

“Oh, would you quit being so  _ dramatic _ , Kenny?” Will is so  _ tired _ — tired of being treated like some kind of lost cause, like he needs fixing or helping, like his life is the Goddamn tragedy he knows deep down that it is— he’s tired. He wants to go home. He’ll sleep this off, and everything will be fine. “I’m here,” he says, gesturing to himself, swallowing the aftertaste of whiskey in his mouth. “I’m fine, see? All in one piece.”

“That’s not the  _ point _ , you fucking idiot,” Kent spits, and his voice is still strained, and Will can’t do this. He’s too tired. His heart hurts too much. “Would you stop—” Kent’s voice catches a little. “Would you stop hurting yourself? Would you stop every once in awhile to remember that there are people who still fucking care about you?”

Everything hurts, and Will’s head is throbbing, and he’s shaking, and he’s cold. “Who?” he deadpans.

Kent scowls. “Fuck you, Dexy.  _ Me _ , that’s who.”

“Fuck you, too,” he echoes, because he doesn’t care. He doesn’t remember how. He digs into his pocket for his keys and announces, “I’m going home.”

Kent  _ laughs _ , but it’s a twisted sort of laugh. “Oh, no you aren’t,” he replies, grabbing the keys out of his hand before Will can think fast enough to react. “Not driving, that’s for shit sure. You’re coming with me.”

“But my  _ truck _ is here,” he protests.

Kent pockets his keys, and Will is so angry with him for  _ complicating _ this night, for throwing off his routine, for— for forcing him to think about everything he’s been trying to avoid. “Your truck means nothing if you’re dead, Will.”

Dead. Like his parents. Like he will be, by the time Derek lives in the same world he does again. Like everyone in his life besides the person standing in front of him. “Does it really matter, Kent?”

Kent flinches, like Will has hit him, and just stares for a second, bristling and silent. Will realizes, in this quiet, with the night’s cold wind as background noise, that maybe he went a little too far, maybe he hurt him. And for a second, through his drunken haze, he realizes that he doesn’t  _ want _ to hurt Kenny. Kenny is his brother. His best friend.

But before he can scramble to a slurred apology, Kent pulls his own keys out of his pocket, grabs Will’s wrist, and huffs, “C’mon.”

Will stumbles along behind him, and doesn’t protest when Kent puts him into the backseat of his car. He presses his forehead against the back of the front driver’s seat, and all at once his stomach starts to hurt a whole lot, and his headache persists, and he feels five years old, sick, ready for Ma to come and comfort him, to tuck him into bed.

Kent gets into the driver’s seat without ceremony or flourish, still fuming, and starts the car. “You’re going home,” he tells him, and then says nothing else, for the entire drive.

Will wishes, curled up in Kent’s backseat, so desperately, that he had someone to go home to.

*

_ September 25th, 2021 _

Kent brings Derek to his kitchen, where there’s a little table next to the stove that he sits him down at. Alexei, who Derek kind of feels bad for, honestly, darts between them like a confused Russian puppy. “Are you… wanting anything?” he asks.

“Oh—” Derek shakes his head, as Alexei hovers by the kitchen table. “No, thank you.”

Alexei turns to Kent. “Kenny?”

“No, I’m just fine, honey,” Kent replies.

“Okay.” Alexei pauses, looks between the two of them, and then nods like he’s made up his mind. “I’m leaving you? You can talk?”

“Thank you, Lexi.” Kent sidles up next to him and kisses his cheek, and then, once he’s been sent off, Alexei ventures into the next room and disappears from Derek’s sight line.

Derek lets the kitchen stay quiet for a second longer, before he tries to break the ice. “Where’d you find him?” he asks, looking up at Kent.

Kent snorts a little, pulling out another chair at the table. “More like he found me,” he replies, as he lowers himself into it and casts his cane aside. “Rolled into town in ‘62,” he explains. “Friend of a friend.” Kent pauses, with a fonder look in his eyes than Derek ever remembers seeing on him, and adds, “Sixty years, next December.”

“Holy shit.” Derek never thought he’d live to see the day. “He tied you down.”

“Something like it.” Kent pauses, eyeing the ring on his left hand, and then remarks, “Wasn’t easy.”

“No.” Derek shakes his head. “Of course not.” What he doesn’t say is,  _ but you made it _ . It’s admirable. It’s inspiring.

Will didn’t make it, though, and it’s like a punch to the stomach to remember that.

“But,” Kent says, pressing his fingers into the tablecloth. “I have a feeling you’re not here to talk about my marriage.”

Derek takes a long breath, and the anxiety returns at full force. “No,” he replies. “I’m not.”

A long silence falls, between them, and he wonders what he should even  _ say _ . He came all the way here with barely any game plan.  _ What exactly do you want to say to him?  _ Chowder asked him, last night, in the hotel room, perched on one of the double beds with fancy sheets.

Derek looked out the window, over the top of so many flashing lights, and replied,  _ I have no idea. _

Finally, Kent speaks. “He’s dead, y’know.”

It hurts. It’s like finding out all over again. “Yeah,” he says. “I… I know.”

“Died almost thirty years ago.” Kent pauses, then grimaces and adds, “Fifty-seven years old.”

Derek winces, but he needs to know. “Were you there?”

“Yes,” Kent replies, which, thank God. “But I wasn’t living there.” He pauses, glancing out his window, to where the sun shines in. “I moved here in 1982.”

“Why here?” he asks.

“Sunshine.” He pauses. “Business. I own the Azalea Casino.” Derek has never heard of this place. He wonders if it even existed, before he time-traveled. If he changed Kent’s course in any way. “Alexei worked for the Aces for years. You know, the hockey team?”

“Yeah, I know them.” He pauses. If Kent moved here that long ago, but Will died in Good Haven… “So… Will stayed?”

“In Good Haven? Yeah.” Kent nods. “All his life.”

Derek takes too long to ask, “You left him?”

Kent sighs a little, pushing his cowlicks back again, and says, “Look, curly… Will pushed me out of his life long before I left Good Haven.”

Another gut punch. “Oh.”

“There’s a lot you missed,” Kent informs him.

He isn’t sure he’s emotionally prepared to hear it all, but it’s why he came so far to see Kent, so there really isn’t a choice. “Can you tell me?”

Kent, too, seems to sense that this might be a lot for him, because he says, “You sure you want to know?”

“That’s why I’m here,” he replies.

Kent takes a long breath, shifting in his seat a little, and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “Okay, curly,” he replies, as he pulls one out and leans back in his seat. “You asked for it.”

*

_ October 21st, 1961 _

Kent drops him off at the bottom of his driveway.

In the dark and the cold, it looks like such a long walk up. But Kent isn’t having it, apparently, because he parks the car and folds his arms, leaning back in his seat. “Get out,” he says.

Will feels so ill, and exhaustion is hitting him, and he knows Kent is angry with him but can’t think to say anything but, “I’m sorry, Kenny.”

“Get out,” Kent repeats. He passes the keys to his truck to him, which are useless here; Will will have to go and pick it up in the morning. “Call me when you’re not drunk or an asshole.”

Will near falls out of the backseat, when he opens the door to get out of it, but finds his footing on the dirt road in the dark. He looks to Kent through his car window, but he’s stone-cold, so upset with him, and Will shouldn’t have gone out tonight, but it was the only thing he could think to do.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, but Kent rolls his eyes, and then drives away.

Will watches his taillights fade, then lets off a shaky breath as he looks up his darkened driveway. There’s only one way to go, and it leads to an empty, dark house with no company but his thoughts.

_ Come home with me, Will. _

He starts the long walk up, and he has never hated himself more than he does right now.

*

_ September 25th, 2021 _

It’s not an explanation Derek enjoys hearing, but then again, he shouldn’t have expected anything different.

“When you left town, Will, he… retreated. Right back into the way he was when he lost his folks.” Kent pauses, takes a drag on his now-lit cigarette. “I’d seen it before, but… it was worse now. The grief. He kept saying to me that he wished he could’ve had you.

“He was down. Sad. Like I’d never seen him. And believe me, I thought I’d seen the worst of it, after his ma died. He sharpened right back up in all the places you evened him out.

“And he just wasn’t… well, he was barely even pleasant anymore.” He sighs a little, and shrugs. “It was like his last light had gone out.”

Ouch.

“I tried to help him,” Kent adds. “I really did. I wanted him to be alright. But he just… I couldn’t get through to him.” He holds the cigarette between two wrinkly old fingers. Some things never change. “And believe me, curly,” he says. “I tried.”

“So that’s why you stopped speaking,” Derek postulates.

Kent nods. His eyes are full of grief, but bitter grief. Remorse, maybe. “I wish I’d been able to…  _ change _ something.”

“Do you…” He speaks slowly, like it’ll hurt less if he takes his time. “Do you think I caused all that?”

“Pff. No.” Kent shakes his head, easily, at this, and waves him off. “No, curly. Trust me. Will was as stubborn as all hell. He made the choices he made for himself.”

“But if…” God, this fucking hurts. “If I’d never come to town…”

“Curly, if you’d never come to town,” Kent replies, “then Will would’ve died just the same as he did. Sad and alone. You taught him love, and I think he regretted letting you go. But what were you supposed to do?  _ Stay _ ?”

Derek winces. “I couldn’t have stayed.”

“I know,” Kent says. “Believe me. Knowing the way the world looks now?”

“This…” He looks around, past Kent’s apartment toward the window. He has no idea what Vegas was like in 1961, but he knows it wasn’t this. “This is all I’ve ever known.”  _ And what I wouldn’t give to share it with Will. _

Kent is quiet for a moment, tapping the table with his free, nonsmoking hand, and then he leans back in his chair, crossing his knee over the other. “Curly,” he says, with something like curiosity in his voice. “Can I ask something?”

Derek nods. “Of course.”

Kent twirls his cigarette a little, then remarks, “Two months after you left, just about… Will told me that you’d asked him to come with you.” He meets his eyes. “Is that true? Did you ask him that?”

He lets all his breath out on one exhale. “I did,” he replies, because what’s the use of lying? “I asked him to come home with me.”

“Huh.” Kent nods. “Okay.”

Derek narrows his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I guess I always wondered if you really did.” Kent shrugs. “Not that I think he had a reason to lie. It was just…” But he trails off, and doesn’t finish that sentence, for favor of another drag on his cigarette.

Derek isn’t sure how much of this he can really take. He fidgets with the hem of his shirt for a second, then blurts, “Kent, I— I’m sorry I just showed up here unannounced looking for a bunch of useless answers.”

“Are you kidding?” Kent raises his eyes to him. “If I had what you two had, and had it taken from me by time? I’d be looking for answers, too.”

“So you think…” He pauses a second, searching Kent’s face. “You don’t think it was a fluke, then. That summer.” He waits another moment before he adds, “Will and I.”

Kent shakes his head. “It was the only love he ever knew,” he replies.  _ Ouch _ . “And it was the purest love, too. You made Will happier than I saw him his whole life after. Closest I could think of is when his parents were alive.”

_ God, _ Derek misses him so much. “I loved him,” he says.

“I know,” Kent replies, with a nod. “He loved you, too. He loved you to the day he died. I don’t think a day passed without him thinking of you.”

He doesn’t want to cry in front of Kent, but he’s testing him. He swallows back the urge to, and nods. “I haven’t stopped thinking of him either,” he says, but knows that his two months pale in comparison to Will’s thirty years.

_ Thirty years _ .

“But curly,” Kent adds, placing a hand on his knee that’s surprisingly gentle. “I need you to understand that it wasn’t your fault.”

Derek hangs his head. He nods, slowly, and says, “I know it wasn’t,” even though it was, because as much as Kent can tell him Will would’ve been the same if they never met, Kent doesn’t  _ know _ that. No one knows that. And Derek is pretty sure Will would have lived his last thirty years a lot less heartbroken if he hadn’t broken his heart in the first place.

He never wanted to break that heart. He wanted to hold it close, for all time.

But time wasn’t on his side, and it never has been, and it never will be.

“Y’know,” Kent remarks, still gentle, “I always wondered if I’d meet you one day. Again.”

Derek forces out a laugh. It’s the only thing that keeps him from crying. He’s glad, suddenly, that he doesn’t have to be fake chill for Kent right now. That Kent is just taking him, as he is, and not judging or laughing at him. That Kent is understanding. “Well,” he replies, lifting his eyes to his, “here I am.”

Kent leans on his kitchen table, and for some reason, in that moment, he looks just like he always did leaning on the host stand in the diner. He looks just like the Kent Derek knew, all those years ago.

A wave of nostalgia hits him, fresh and full of hurt, and he swallows again.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Kent tells him. “I think he would be, too.”

*

_ Day 57 without Derek _

_ October 22nd, 1961 _

“Here you go, honey.”

Will accepts the pie from Eric. It’s heavy in his hands, and bursting with blueberries at the seams. Its crust is shiny and sugar-topped, and the tin is still warm on its underside, and it’s perfect, because no Eric pie is anything less than perfect. It’s just what Will asked him for.

“Thank you,” he replies, looking up to meet his eyes. They stand in his kitchen at the inn, and it smells like everything delicious all at once. “I mean it, Eric. You didn’t have to do this on such short notice.”

“Oh, Will, don’t even mention it.” Eric pauses, gently, and studies him for a moment with that trademark Bittle look, the one that says he feels sorry for you. Will gets it from Mrs. Bittle and Eric himself all the time, a sympathetic frown that reminds him all at once that he’s an orphan and a sob story, and now, even more, he’s a grieving lover. “Is it… for you?” Eric asks, with those big brown eyes still on him.

Will shakes his head, clears his throat, and does not sulk like the tragedy he knows this whole town thinks he is. “No,” he replies. “It’s, uh… I had a falling-out with Kenny.”

Eric nods a little, like he already knows this, like he had a hunch. “Ah,” he replies, and then flashes a little smile, like he’s trying for humor. “He can be a real trip, can’t he?”

Will chuckles. He forces it, but it’s a laugh all the same, and he nods. “That he can,” he replies, even though last night was a hundred percent his own fault and not even Kenny’s by a little. “How much do I owe you?” he asks, nodding to the pie in his hands.

“Nothing at all.” Eric pats him on the shoulder, still wearing an oven mitt, and says, “You just go right on and take care of your problem with Kent, okay? Don’t worry about paying me anything.”

“Eric,” Will protests, because calling someone at seven in the morning and asking for an emergency pie only for them to deliver on that promise no more than three hours later is really not a thing that should happen for free. “I oughta give you  _ something _ .”

“You can give me the satisfaction of knowing you and my cousin are a-okay,” Eric replies. He takes his oven mitt off his shoulder and softens again. “Go, honey. It’s alright. I promise.”

He looks down at the gigantic pie. “Are you  _ sure _ ?”

“I’m positive,” Eric replies, and that’s how he winds up driving to Kent’s apartment with a pie riding shotgun in his truck.

He didn’t call Kent for a ride, when he woke up this morning, to get his truck at the bar. Instead, he did his chores at the barn, to clear the leftover fog in his head from the night before, and then found his old bicycle. It needed a little greasing up, but it was good to go quickly, and he made the ride uptown to the bar, tossing it in his trunk and driving back home.

The next stop was Eric’s, when he learned the pie was ready. And the next stop is Kent’s.

He needs to apologize.

“It’s me,” he says, into the intercom system, after Kent answers his buzz on the ground floor of the building. “It’s Will.”

Kent is silent for too long, through the speaker, and Will wonders if he’s even home. What would be worse than him not being home would be him  _ being _ home, and purposely ignoring him. He’s leaning in to speak again, to plead with him, when the door clicks, and Kent’s intercom voice says, “Come on up.”

He pushes the door open, climbs the stairs, and knocks on the door to his apartment. Kent answers in his work clothes— he’s working his usual Sunday dinner shift, but doesn’t go in for a few more hours. He looks from Will, to the pie, and then back to Will. His expression is scarily neutral, which is unusual for him, and Will has never been so afraid that he might be losing his best friend.

Until Kent holds the door back for him and says, “In here.”

Will complies. When Kent has closed the door behind him, he strolls around front again, folding his arms, and remarks, “That’s an Eric pie.”

“I special-ordered it.” He holds it up; it’s still warm. “First thing this morning.”

“Huh.” Kent clicks his tongue, then takes the pie from him, walking it over to his kitchen table and setting it next to his ashtray. “Blueberry. You know the way to my heart, Dexy.”

It’s his usual joking, or at least it  _ sounds _ like it— but there’s this unveiled dull nature to it, that isn’t usually there. Like Kent has had just as long of a night and morning as he has. Like he’s still upset with him. Will opens his mouth to apologize, but before he can, Kent turns on his heel and takes a brisk breath. “Look. Dexy. I… I’m sorry for last night.” Will starts to interrupt him, but he holds his hand up, a silent  _ let me finish _ . “I was worried about you, but shouting at you was uncalled for. I know you’re hurting, and I…” He shakes his head. “I need to be more mindful of that.”

Will swallows, and realizes, even though this is a very inopportune time for it, that there is a lump in his throat.

He tries talking. “No,” he gets out, and his voice feels unbearably shaky. “No, Kenny, I—”  _ Gee _ , is he really on the verge of tears right now? Is this really where he is, at this stage in his grieving process, a process that should be long over? Is he this tired, this drained? This weak?

“You were right,” he says, which is what he came all the way over here to tell Kent, and then, before he can stop himself, there are tears in his eyes.

“Hey.” Kent notices right away, because he notices everything, twenty-five years at his side. “Hey. Dexy.  _ Will _ . C’mere.” He steps forward to wrap him in a hug, and Will holds on tight, and oh,  _ God _ , now he’s actually crying. Now he feels the unsteady breathing rack his chest, gives way to the tightness in his throat and lets out a strangled noise. His cheeks are wet, and he presses his face into Kenny’s shoulder, and he is so, so  _ tired _ .

“ _ Shhh _ ,” Kent hushes, rubbing his back. He’s so much taller than Kent is, but he feels like a tiny little kid in his best friend’s embrace. “Hey, what’s wrong? Say something.”

“I—” He stumbles over his words, because what can he even  _ say _ . “I— I fucking miss him, Kenny,” he gets out. “I miss him so much.”

“Oh, Will,” Kent mumbles. He holds on tight. “I’m so sorry.”

“He—” Will chokes on his words, and he feels like the most pathetic man in the world, but he has to get this out. He has to talk about this, because if he keeps it inside of himself for any longer than he already has he thinks he might burst. “He asked me to come with him,” he says. “He asked me, and I said no, and that’s why he left, and I— I don’t know if I did the right thing, Kenny.”

“Hey,  _ shhhh _ ,” Kent soothes again, and he pulls back to meet his eyes. Will is a disgrace, an emotional mess, and he hates himself so much he’s not sure he can stand it anymore. “We should— we should talk about this, Will. Do you wanna sit down?”

“No,” he says, and the world is spinning when he’s stone cold sober. “No, I— I just— I want him, Kenny. I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want—”

“Dexy.” Kent pulls him in again. Will can’t think, and can’t breathe, and all he can do is cry. “It’s okay, alright? It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Will stops trying to talk. He buries his face in Kent’s shoulder, cries, and hangs on for dear life.

He’s hurting worse than he ever has, but for the first time in two months, he feels just a little less alone.

*

_ September 25th, 2021 _

They talk for what feels like hours, and when he’s finally leaving, Derek is drained.

He needs sleep, he decides. Sleep, in the hotel room. Or on the plane ride home tomorrow. So much for going to a casino. He thinks he just needs to give his brain a rest. It hurts too much to do anything different right now.

He bids Alexei goodbye, and tells him it was nice to meet him. “Nice meeting you too,” Alexei, who has learned minimal information about him, and who will probably get a long and detailed story from his husband as soon as Derek is gone, replies. “Have safe trip home.”

“Thank you.” He seems like a nice person. He’s glad Kent has him.  _ Has _ had him. For almost sixty years.

It could have been him and Will.

_ God _ , maybe it still could be. Maybe, if he listens to that one impulsive train of thought with all the terrible ideas.

At the door, he pauses, and looks to Kent to say, “Can I ask you something?”

Kent leans on the wall next to the door, with his cane in the other hand. “Sure thing, pretty boy.”

“If…” He speaks slowly, and wonders if Kent will think he’s crazy.  _ He _ thinks he’s crazy. “If I went back for him.” He pauses. “Do you… think he would have come home with me?”

Kent takes a second to process this, head tilted to the ceiling, like he’s thinking. Then he nods, very slowly, and Derek knows in that moment that his imagination will run with this, for better or for worse. “I think so,” Kent says. “Maybe not right as soon as you left. But he…  _ missed _ you. So much. Every day.” Kent takes a long, deep breath, and meets his eyes to remark, “I think there was a part of him that always regretted not going with you.”

It’s all Derek needs to hear.

“Thank you, Kent,” he says, and adds, “Thank you for hearing me out.”

“Of course, curly.” Kent puts a hand very gently on his elbow, blue veins and wrinkles and wedding ring and all. “Good luck,” he says, more sincere than Derek has ever heard him.

Kent survived. Despite the odds, he survived.

He wants to do everything in his power to let Will survive, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!!! If you're curious, you can find the update schedule for the remainder of this fic [right here](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/623405222497320960/love-finds-you-update-schedule). Thank you very much for reading. <3


	45. requiem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For once in my life, the chapter title is NOT a deliberate Dear Evan Hansen reference. If you look at some of my other fic titles, you may notice, uh, a pattern. But anyway. Caution: angst ahead.

_ Day 70 without Will _

_ October 1st, 2021 _

Derek is going to give himself one try.

One try, and that’s it. One chance, one ride, and one trip. One speech, one plea, if he gets that far. And if it backfires, at any point along the way, he is going home and moving on with his life.

Will may have been the love of his life, and he would give anything to share the rest of it with him. But he can’t stay hung up on him forever if he’s never going to have the chance to do that. And fuck, like, it’s going to be  _ so _ hard, if this really is the end, and if he does what he’s setting out to do and then has to grieve Will all over again— it’s going to suck. Majorly. Royally. So much.

But he has to try.

Because he believes that Kent— old, gentle, settled-down Kent, a sight he never thought he’d see— was telling him the truth; he would have no reason to lie to him. And there’s something in him, however small it might be, telling him that he should give this one last try.

Call it instinct. Call it fate. Call it complete and utter idiocy.

(It’s probably the last one.)

He is going to Good Haven, one last time.

And this time, he’s going there prepared. He takes a bus again, because he left his car, the piece of shit, completely nonfunctional in Good Haven in the summer, and he’s pretty sure they would have salvaged it for parts or something by now, if it could have been at all useful to them that way. The bus picks him up at the depot in Manhattan, and he’ll have to change buses twice to get where he’s going, because the driver, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) is not Johnson, and it all puts him in at evening time given that he leaves New York in the morning, but he doesn’t care. He’s on a mission.

He is going to go and get his man. Like the star of a really awful sci-fi romantic comedy that’s also somehow a drama and a period piece all at once.

“Hey,” he says, to Chowder, in a voicemail, as he’s leaving bright and early on a Friday morning. Chowder knows his whole plan, and they parted at the airport in Vegas last weekend after ample warning and well-wishing from Chowder and profuse thanks to him from Derek. “I’m, uh… I’m ‘bout to head out. Wanted to call you before I did. I know you won’t hear this until later, but I’ll keep you posted.” He takes a long breath, and then adds, “I won’t be there longer than the weekend.”

And that’s a promise to Chowder he refuses to break. Time be damned. He will  _ claw _ his way home, if necessary. Will or no Will.

But then again. He’s banking on Will.

The bus, a Greyhound with a slightly sketchy cleaning policy, takes him from Manhattan to Boston in about five hours. In Boston, he switches buses, with his backpack in tow, and when he gets to Portland for the second changeover, he buys flowers in the station. They’re sunflowers, his favorite— maybe that should be his next tattoo, but then again, with his nicely healed peonies on his shoulder, he’s pretty set for flower ones at least for now.

It’s later in the afternoon by the time he gets on the second bus in Portland, but he only has a few more hours to go until he gets to Good Haven. He listens to an audio recording of one of Chowder’s preseason games from the other night on the second bus ride, watching the foliage pass by his window.

_ … and a beautiful save by Chow!  _ He kind of wishes he were actually watching the game, for the visual on said beautiful save. But it’s a comforting sound all the same. As he listens to the whole thing through, he learns that Chowder pulls a shutout, for a 2-0 final against the Canucks.

His best friend is a superstar.

Will should meet him, he decides. If tonight goes as planned, and if he’s somehow by some stroke of luck able to convince Will to come home with him, despite all the times he asked and was rejected— then in that case, Will should meet Chowder. Of  _ course _ he’d meet Chowder, in that case. How can you bring someone home from the past and not introduce them to your best friend?

And yeah, maybe it’s a lot of wishful thinking. Maybe Derek is wasting a weekend of his life to haul ass up to the middle of nowhere, Maine, despite having only just recently (relatively speaking) escaped the time-warp clutches it trapped him in. Maybe it’s all a fluke, and he’s going to be riding this same bus home on Sunday, having gained nothing but more heartbreak.

But after talking to Kent, he knows he has to  _ try _ .

Because he can’t stop hearing those words in his head:  _ He missed you. So much. Every day. I think there was a part of him that always regretted not going with you. _

Derek is praying, to every force in the universe, that that part of Will loves him enough to take a chance on what they had this summer. That he  _ can _ bring him home. That he can fix what he’s wronged.

That he can heal both their broken hearts.

He texts Chowder when the reception starts getting spotty, a surefire sign that Good Haven is near.

_ You: almost there. won’t be long. _

_ big c: Be safe nursey _

_ big c: I hope for the best _

_ You: me too. _

_ You: thanks c _

_ You: love you _

_ big c: I love you too!! _

It’s a gray day, overcast all over the sky like a shroud, and when the bus comes to a rickety stop at the Good Haven bus depot, he stands ready to face the music. He pulls his backpack over his shoulder, gathers up the flowers like a lonely boy in a music video, and walks off the bus into the windy cold.

It’s so cold, in fact, that he immediately has to zip up his jacket. He knows he has to walk a few miles to get downtown, but it’s not like he didn’t grow well accustomed to walking on the Good Haven roads during that little while of living at Eric’s inn while his car had already crapped out on him.

So he walks. He bears his bouquet of sunflowers, and he walks, faster and faster until the trees give way to the downtown he knows well.

Except it’s different, today— this afternoon, with the dark quickly taking shape and snubbing out daylight. There are a few subtle differences in the way Good Haven looks, based on how he remembers it, but one thing remains the same: Annie’s, bearing the paint job he gave it, all warm light inside its windows with a packed parking lot outside.

He can’t help it. He runs. He runs across a crosswalk, and then straight up to the front door. He doesn’t see Will’s truck in the lot, but he’s not counting that as a reason to believe he’s not at work. He thinks it would be fitting, sort of, to find him here, in the very place he first met him.

He yanks the door open, and stumbles inside. The person he finds himself eye-to-eye with at the host stand is, distinctly, not Kent. It’s a middle-aged white woman with gray streaks in her dark hair, and she’s not wearing a diner hat. She looks incredibly exhausted, and she’s reaching for a laminated menu before the door even swings shut behind him. “Table for one?”

“Uh, no.” He cranes his neck toward the bar, but Will isn’t working it; it’s manned by somebody he doesn’t recognize. He looks back to the lady. “Is Will in today?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Will?”

“Will,” he echoes. His heart is pounding out of his chest. “The barkeep.”

The confusion doesn’t leave her face. She looks at him like he’s a bad stain she needs to get out in the wash. “We don’t have a barkeep named Will, buddy.”

He blinks. The picture of Annie with baby Kent is still above the host stand, but come to think of it, he doesn’t recognize a single employee in this place. What happened? “Will Poindexter doesn’t work here anymore?”

Now, rather than contemptuous and probably racist, the lady just looks  _ confused _ as fuck. Which, that makes two of them. “Will Poindexter?” she echoes. “The old farmer?”

_ Old _ farmer. It doesn’t strike him as hard as it should, until she adds, “He died so many years ago, you probably weren’t even born, kid.”

_ Now _ the realization hits. Like a truck. Going full speed. He surveys the scene again, and notes so many details he should have picked up on right away— sure, a lot of the old stuff is still  _ here _ , like the jukebox that doesn’t look state-of-the-art anymore, and the now-worn leather of the booth seats, and the check-tiled floor. But this place— it isn’t the Annie’s he knew.

There’s a little kid playing on an iPad in a booth with her parents. More than a handful of patrons are using cell phones. There’s a  _ color TV _ behind the bar, tuned to one of the national news channels he gets at home.

He’s… not in 1961.

“‘Scuse me?” He jolts, as he realizes the host stand lady is still scrutinizing him. She waves her menu in the air, a little menacingly. “You gonna take a table or what?”

This is  _ not _ the warm atmosphere he remembers. This is  _ none _ of what he remembers. This is all wrong. He’s in his own time, and— and he won’t find Will here.

_ Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.  _ “Uh.” He shakes his head, lest this lady get mad, and steps backwards toward the door. “No,” he says. “My bad. I think I’m in the wrong place.”

He stumbles out the door back into the chilly evening, and tries  _ so, so desperately _ not to dissolve immediately into full panic in the parking lot. The signs should have been clear before the lady had to tell him flat-out that Will was dead. There are buildings here he doesn’t remember, and cars far too new to be anything out of the time he was shooting for.

He leans against the building, in Johnson’s old smoke spot, while he takes a few deep breaths. The cold air hurts his lungs, and he roots his shoes to the asphalt like maybe that’ll change a thing.

He’s still in 2021. It never occurred to him that time might not let him  _ through _ to Will, that he might travel 8+ hours by bus just to be stuck on the wrong side of some kind of invisible time-travel fuckery that he apparently never paid enough attention to the basic workings of.  _ Fuck.  _ He’s so fucking stupid. He’s in Good Haven, sure, but what good is that when the man he loves is still so long dead he never lived to see the day Derek was born?

He pulls out his phone, and the idea of using a cell phone outside Annie’s Diner feels so alien that he almost feels like he shouldn’t be doing it at all, but he powers on the display anyway. It’s 5:12 PM on October 1st, 2021, and he is in Good Haven, Maine, with one bar of cell service, and somebody just liked his latest random writerly Tweet, and—

And the Will he loves is sixty years away, doing who knows what, while the Will this time knows is six feet under.

_ Fuck _ . He doubles over to take another deep breath. He wonders if someone will come out and yell at him for being behind the building. Maybe it’ll be Johnson. Honestly, Johnson would be a good source of guidance right now.

Or maybe not. Fuck that guy. How many times did he tell Derek it was all going to be okay? What a presumptuous asshole. He was like a walking motivational poster, the type in high school hallways, all that  _ treat others with kindness _ jargon. Andover had the nerve to have a bunch of those, even with so much rampant racism, homophobia, and classism going on at every corner. Those posters, like Johnson, are all vague and ambiguous positivity, with no supporting evidence.

Derek has no idea when he got so fucking  _ cynical _ , but, like—

Okay. Maybe there’s still a little hope. What does he have to do to get back to where he needs to be, to find Will?

Well, he doesn’t really want to  _ walk _ all around town. But Good Haven, even in 2021, is too small of a town to have taxi service. He walks to the curb, leaving Johnson’s smoke spot, and takes in his surroundings.

The town may be newer than he left it, but he still knows his surroundings. A left turn on this road and a two-mile walk will lead him to Eric’s inn, or maybe what used to be Eric’s inn and is now something completely different. Three storefronts down from Annie’s is the general store where Will used to go to pick up small household items; he sent Derek there a grand total of once, with a list, and it did not end well on account of Derek having no idea what any of the brands were. A few minutes’ drive down past the high school will bring him to the winding dirt road, with the white farmhouse that was something like home for a summer and only a summer.

He has given up a weekend. Brought himself all the way here. Geared himself up to give a speech, to win him back, to change his mind. And now…

Well, now all he is is an idiot, on the curb by an outdated diner, with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

But he wants— God, he fucking wants so badly to believe that time might still let him through to him. And yet he has absolutely no idea where that might happen, or how he could bring it about.

Somewhere in this town, Will is buried. He knows the cemetery is out by the church Will grew up going to, but going there doesn’t sound like it would be the greatest thing for his brain at this exact second, so instead, he walks. He steps onto the sidewalk, holds his sorry flowers at his side, and walks the route he knows well, the route he rode shotgun for so many times this summer.

It’s cold, and summer is so far gone. But he walks, because if he got himself lost to come here, and if he did all of this in the name of love for someone he’s truly never going to see again, he at least wants to give himself the indulgence of seeing what Will’s home looks like now.

It’s an idea he doesn’t realize the awfulness of until he walks up Will’s driveway, so many paces and at least fifteen minutes later.

There’s a no-trespassing sign posted on a tree at the bottom of the driveway, but he ignores it, because whether it was placed there by Will as a grouchy old man or by somebody in the neighborhood in the years since his death, he won’t let it stop him from seeing what’s beyond it. Which normal-minded Derek would understand is a total white person in a horror movie move, but right now, that’s far from important.

The thing is that the farm itself doesn’t even  _ look  _ that different. On the trees outside and the forest framing the property, the leaves have fallen. There’s no sign of the yard having been cleaned up anytime recently, since the lawn is more a meadow of tall grass, and the cow pasture is what looks like long since overgrown. The white house, with all its darkened windows, has most certainly not been painted over in sixty years. Constant as ever, the big oak tree in the yard stands tall, its leaves shed for the season.

Will’s truck, though, is not in its usual spot in the driveway. And the barn’s doors are shuttered with boards.

It’s an eerie, unsettling sight, especially in the dark, and it makes him fear that the  _ house _ itself might be boarded up, too. But when he catches sight of the front door, it isn’t boarded up. When he kneels in the long-overgrown front garden and lifts the rock under which Will keeps the spare key, it’s tarnished and sort of rusting, but it’s there.

He takes the front steps onto the porch carefully, like the wood and foundation might crumble beneath his feet if he’s too rough. But it doesn’t, and he makes his way carefully to the front door. When he slides the key into the lock, he doesn’t expect it to give— but with a creak, it does, and Will’s house welcomes him in, even if he’s anything but welcome.

Will’s house, as Derek knew it, always had a certain life to it— maybe that impression is only a result of Will’s fervent belief in his parents’ ghosts, but Derek still has it all the same. When he steps into the mudroom, he house is musty, dark, and empty of near any sign of the life he remembers. It smells like an attic, but one that hasn’t been opened in thirty years.

It’s around then that it strikes him that poking around the dead love of his life’s house may not be the best idea, but he dragged himself all the way here, and if this is all that’s left of Will,  _ his _ Will, then he wants to see it.

He closes the door behind himself. The sparse evening light isn’t much to see by through the windows, so he tries the light. It doesn’t work.

So he pulls out his phone, for a flashlight, and a chill runs down his spine, like Will’s beloved ghosts have found him.

Or  _ Will _ is one of the ghosts, now.

He swallows.

The floorboards creak under his feet, as he starts further into the house. The walls are all still wood, and it doesn’t look like Will had any flooring work done or anything in the years he missed. But then again— as Derek enters the kitchen, shining his hesitant flashlight along the space, it doesn’t look like Will updated much of  _ anything _ with the changing times.

He sets his pathetic flowers on the kitchen table, while he takes in the darkened scene. There’s an updated, eighties-looking fridge, and he invested in a new stove, too, at some point. But plenty of things remain— like every picture on the walls; none of them have been updated, and that old, hulking radio still stands near the record player in the living room. It’s so unsettlingly similar to the place he left behind, last seen in almost this exact light (minus the iPhone flashlight), that he wonders if he’s trapped in some kind of pocket dimension.

He stops in the living room, shining his light on the old military portrait of Will’s pa on the wall. Will’s pictures— they were so important to him, and yet there isn’t a single photo of Will himself among them.

His flashlight times out, and another shiver hits him as it casts him into only faintly glowing dusk. His breath catches in his throat, and before he can stop himself, he speaks. “Will?”

It’s the first time he’s said his name in awhile; even in the occasional heartsick lament to Chowder, Will has mostly just been  _ him _ . Like  _ I miss him, C _ . Or  _ I had a dream about him last night.  _ Or  _ My overnight bag still smells like his house. _

But  _ Will _ — it hurts to say that. And he isn’t sure what he’s expecting to happen when he calls his name, but nothing does. The house meets him with its same old darkened, creaky quiet.

Will isn’t here. Will is gone.

He swallows back what might be a lump in his throat, and turns his flashlight on again. There’s one bar of reception here, but a spotty one. And it doesn’t matter; he has no one to text right now.

Because bad ideas are his specialty, apparently, he heads upstairs. The study, his studio, is stripped, aside from the old desk, and all its drawers are empty. Will’s childhood bedroom, down the hall, is similarly bare, with only a bedframe inside. He wonders why the upstairs seems to have been cleaned, while downstairs remains intact.

But at the end of the hall by the stairs, with a closed door, stands the room it’ll be most difficult to go into. Derek shines his light over the door. It’s the same door, but he isn’t sure he’s ever seen it closed— Will always left it open, whether they were sleeping or changing, or just resting. It’s not like there was anybody to hide from, in the house.

His stomach turns over, now, looking at that closed door. He thinks, for a second, that it would be too much. But impulse gets the best of him, the same way it did that day in the café when he decided to Google Will’s name. He never should have done that, really; he wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t, wouldn’t be racked with so much heartache that he barely even registers the feeling anymore. He’d be further along in his healing, by now. He wouldn’t be hearing Kent’s voice every time he closed his eyes.  _ He was down. Sad. Like I’d never seen him. It was like his last light had gone out. _

But he doesn’t have the best track record in terms of doing the logical thing. If he did, he never would have known Will. Good Haven would be nothing to him but a map dot in the middle of nowhere.

So he steps forward and twists the dark knob on the bedroom door.

Unceremoniously, it gives. By flashlight, Will’s bedroom is nothing like the other rooms upstairs. It’s near untouched.

The bed is a frame, sure, which is probably a good thing, because Derek isn’t sure he’d have been able to handle the sight of the bed he shared with him, all made up and normal.

So thank God, it’s not like that. And aside from Will’s picture of his parents, there’s nothing on the dresser. But the curtains are still in the window, and there’s— there’s something in the closet.

He wonders if Will would be angry that he’s going through his stuff. His knees are buckling, but he makes his way to the closet anyway, where he pulls out the one hanger while he hopes Will wouldn’t be.

It’s a sweater, in a garment bag. It’s beyond dusty, completely covered in a layer of it, and he’s coughing and wiping up the plastic as he wonders why you leave one sweater in a dead man’s closet.

But oh—  _ oh _ . As he gets a better look at the sweater, something hits him, an unwelcome revelation. This isn’t Will’s sweater. This sweater belongs to  _ him _ .

It’s cream, and thin-knit, and he can’t believe he left it here, but it’s undoubtedly his. He can’t believe, even more than that, that Will  _ kept _ it— why did he keep it?

There’s a note attached to it, he realizes. It’s faded paper, maybe formerly white but yellowing now, and it’s pinned to the sleeve. He lifts the garment bag, wipes the dust from the note, and—

— and his heart fractures all over again.

The note says  _ For Derek _ . That’s it. Nothing else. It’s a note for Will from himself, a denotation of intention, of long-gone hope. Derek falters, and swallows again, and the scrawl of Will’s handwriting blurs through his long held back tears.

Will thought he would come back to him.

And  _ God _ — that’s exactly what he came here to do, to find Will and to win him back, to take him home, and yet here he is, trapped on the other side of time, stuck and pulled away from him.

He snuffles, like a little bitch, and the tears come spilling before he can stop them. He drops the sweater, hanger and all, and steps back from the closet, doubling over.  _ Fuck _ . His whole body is shaking, and he’s so  _ tired _ of feeling so, so unwell and awful, and yet he brought himself all the way here, like time would cooperate, like he’d be able to do anything but learn what he already knows— Will died, alone, before he was even born.

And yet he’s  _ here _ — he came here for him, and why is it that Good Haven only welcomes him when he’s not prepared for it?

“Will,” he says, through his tears, like he’ll appear. Then, to the house, to time, to anybody, he stammers, “Wh— Why won’t you let me through to him?”

But there’s never going to be an answer.

He pulls Will’s dresser drawer open, and from there, it gets worse— because there’s the journal he left with him, and there’s the drawing he made of that oak tree in the yard, and there, buried in the bottom of the drawer, is the rolled-up canvas from his painting. Did Will really keep all of this so close, right next to his bed like this, until the day he died?

His hands are shaking a little, but he pulls out the journal. The pages are yellow and fraying, like they’ve been turned many a time, but all his work is intact, from cover to cover. The note he wrote him ( _ i love you, anywhere and anytime, you & me - d _ ) is at the end, and when he flips to it, something flies out from between the pages and flutters to the floor. He bends over to pick it up, returning the journal to the drawer.

It’s a picture, and it’s landed face-down on the ground. When he turns it over to investigate, his stomach knots up. It’s— he’s choking up again— it’s a picture of him and Will.

In black and white, it was taken in the diner, and he remembers the day it was taken— one of his painting days, when Annie was going around with a camera hollering about how she wanted to update what was on the walls. The smile on Will’s face there is the purest thing he’s ever seen, even though the blur of his tears. There they are, frozen in time,  _ happy _ — and so in love.

They had no idea what was coming. He looks at himself in the photo and sees naivete beyond belief.

He presses the photo to his nose, and he can’t breathe well, but he lets himself cry, like getting it out of his system will end this once and for all. Everything hurts, too much to say, and he can’t stay here, but he’ll take this photo, he resolves. He’ll keep this and nothing else.

He hopes Will’s ghost will forgive him.

He closes the room back up, tucks the photo into his pocket, and returns everything to its place. It’s time to go home. There’s nothing left to do.

But in the kitchen, on the way out, his flashlight catches the abandoned bundle of sunflowers, and something strikes him.

If he’s saying goodbye for good, there’s one more place he should go.

*

Will is buried next to his parents.

It isn’t a surprise, really. Mr. and Mrs. Poindexter share a headstone, and then Will is right next to them.  _ 1935-1993. _ It’s plain, medium gray. He thought reading his obituary was bad, but  _ this _ … he can’t even look dead-on at his name where it’s etched in the stone.

It’s cold, dark, and steadily breezy, and he lays the sunflowers on the ground, what he came here to do. That  _ should _ be the end— he should leave— but he can’t help himself. “Sorry I don’t have peonies,” he tells Will. “They’re… not really in season, I guess.”

He shifts his weight, takes a shaky breath, and then adds, “Uh— well, actually, scratch that. I low-key  _ do _ have peonies.” He taps his shoulder, but the ink is well hidden beneath a long-sleeved henley and his Patagonia jacket. “Got a new tattoo,” he explains.

Will’s grave is still and indifferent.

He kneels, on the cold, hard ground, and thinks how fucking weird and morbid it is to be talking to a dead man he still loves, but all he can say is, “I’m so sorry, Will.”

What is he sorry for? Leaving? Time and never having enough of it? Coming into Will’s life in the first place? All of the above, more like.

“I— I don’t even know why I’m here,” he starts to tell him, but it’s not true. “Actually, no. That’s a lie. I came here to ask you to come home with me. And— and time wouldn’t let me through, so— I’m going now. Home, I mean. For good.”

He’s so cold, and so, so tired. But he owes this to Will, he thinks. An explanation. An apology.  _ Something _ .

“Will, I—” His voice catches in his throat. “I— you could’ve been here with me, y’know?”  _ God _ , he’s tired of crying. “It could’ve been us. You and me.” He remembers writing that in the notebook in those early hours of the morning he left, thinking, idiot that he was and is, that it would comfort Will.  _ You and me _ is a mourning song, now. It’s an echo of what was, and never could have been.

“But you’re not,” he adds, wiping his eyes. “I’m here, and you’re there, and— God, Will, I fucking miss you.”

He’ll never stop missing him.

“I love you,” he adds, and Will will never hear him. But he’ll always love him, all the same.

He leaves the sunflowers on his grave, and walks back into the cold night.

*

He needs a room, because he can’t fathom the idea of going from New York to Good Haven and back again all in the same 24 hours. So he finds his way across town, the night totally dark by now, with weakened knees and a dim spirit.

There’s nothing left to do but go home. He’ll do that, tomorrow, on a good night’s sleep.

He’s praying that Eric’s place still exists as lodging, and when he gets there, he peeks at the sign like a creep on the sidewalk. Thank fuck, it is. It’s a bed and breakfast, but the  _ Bittle’s _ has been removed from the name. It’s the Blueberry Inn now. How quaint.

He wonders if Eric is still alive, or if he’s another one of the people he knew who he’ll never see again.

It doesn’t matter. He’s so, so tired. And as he walks to the door, crossing the parking lot, the world is spinning.

He stops to steady himself, on some random car. What is his deal? He’s been walking a lot tonight, but he has to be able to make it to that front door— because if not— if not, he’ll be passed-out in some random parking lot, and is he  _ really _ about to pass out right now?

He doesn’t have time to think on that too long. He trips over nothing, and he’s on the ground, and then all at once, the night fades from dark to completely black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry but I’m not. See you Tuesday! We’re in the actual home stretch now. [ Here’s your update schedule](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/623405222497320960/love-finds-you-update-schedule), and [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!!


	46. good haven

_ November 2nd, 1961 _

Eric knows that what he’s doing is silly.

It could be argued that he isn’t doing anything, not actively, at least. After all, he was the one who came downstairs this afternoon and started up on an apple pie, completely on his own accord. And it isn’t like he  _ disinvites  _ guests at the inn from helping out with baking— Lord knows Derek was handy, over the summer, always chipping in if he thought Eric could use the help— but ever since Derek left, baking has been his activity alone, once again. He doesn’t mind it, of course. It’s his happy place, where he goes to forget about all the stresses of life.

So really, he can’t be blamed. Because it isn’t his fault that Mr. Jack Zimmermann wandered in here after he got home from his coaching meeting at the high school, asking what smelt so good.

And it  _ also _ isn’t Eric’s fault that Jack asked if he could help out. Eric assigned him an apple peeler and told him to get to it, because if a guest wants to make themselves useful, he isn’t going to turn them away. No matter how dangerously pretty they may be.

It’s still not his fault, a good thirty minutes later, that Jack remains in his kitchen even now. And it’s not his fault that Jack is an atrocious lattice crust maker, so he needs Eric’s help.

Truly. It isn’t his fault. But  _ Jack is in his kitchen. _

“Um…” Regarding his lattice disaster, Jack seems to know his flaws. With one of Eric’s older aprons tied around his waist ( _ Lord _ , what a figure), he stands over the fraying strips of pastry with concern in his eyes. “Eric?”

“Good Lord.” Eric places his floury hands on his hips, and arches an eyebrow up at him. “You’re just too much of a jock for the kitchen, now, aren’t you?”

A gentle grin crosses Jack’s face, and it almost knocks Eric clean off his feet. “We can’t all be like you,” he replies.

Eric takes a deep breath that he hopes isn’t too obvious, but even if it were, he can pass it off as exasperation, can’t he? He crosses the small space between them and reaches across Jack’s arms to help him with the lattice crime scene.

Tall as a tree, with a well-built form, dark hair, and bright blue eyes, Jack is a friend of Kent’s, come to town for the new high school hockey coaching job. He has a Canadian accent, thanks to where he’s from, and oh, maybe Eric shouldn’t talk about accents, given his own, but an accent just so damned handsome on Jack, just like the rest of him.

But Eric is smart. Eric knows better than to fall for an out-of-towner,  _ especially _ after what happened to Will. Everyone in town can tell he’s been beside himself these past few months, like he’s had another great big loss all over again, but very few people— Eric among them— understand what happened to him.

Eric won’t let himself get hurt, in the same way Will did. But Jack Zimmermann is in his kitchen, and he’s smiling, and Eric fiddles with the lattice he’s near destroyed to try and distract himself from the truth that’s been looming larger and larger.

You can’t fall for a man who won’t love you back.

“You have to weave it  _ gently _ ,” he explains to Jack, who’s hovering over his shoulder at a respectable but blush-inducing distance. Eric hopes he doesn’t look silly. He is, after all, in his element, and shouldn’t be shaken by the fact that an outsider is here with him. “You’ll lose your strips otherwise.”

“Hm.” Jack is nodding, slowly. “You’re more efficient than I am.”

He laughs a little, eyes still on the pie. It’s maple-sugar crusted apple, which he’s learned, in the two months that Jack has been boarding with him, is a favorite of his. He reckons it’s because of the maple, since Jack is Canadian. “Well, I have a lot of practice under my belt,” he quips, too easily, and goes about his lattice repair well aware that Jack is watching.

It isn’t his fault. He just walked into his kitchen. What is a man going to do, kick another, beautiful, Canadian man out of his kitchen?

“See?” he explains, as he’s continuing to fix it. “You lay it out on the sides. I’ll come right around and cut it for you—” Suddenly, he’s aware that Jack is no longer watching him. In fact, Jack is staring out the window. He’s witnessed him space out a few times before, and has come to understand that this is just something Jack does, sometimes.

So Eric looks up and flicks some flour at the front of his apron. “Hey!” he says, with a gentle smile. “How are you supposed to learn if you aren’t paying attention?”

Jack blinks; he looks a little confused. “Sorry,” he says, shaking himself out. “It’s just… there’s… a man outside?” He pauses, craning his neck to the window, and adds, “He looks unconscious.”

Eric turns around to look out the window with him. “A man?” he echoes, pulling back the cream-colored curtain all the way to see. Jack is right. There  _ is _ a man outside. And he  _ does _ look unconscious. He’s laying in his parking lot, like some victim at a crime scene on television.

But not just that. Even in the evening light, Eric  _ knows _ that man. He’d know him anywhere.

“Well, I’ll be,” he mumbles, folding his arms.

Jack is still over his shoulder, too close for comfort considering Eric is trying very hard not to fall for him. It’s not the worst problem in the world, except it is. “Do you recognize him?” he asks.

Eric doesn’t respond, right away.

He never thought he’d see that man show his face in Good Haven again.

*

Derek wakes to a slap on his face.

It is a  _ rude _ awakening, thanks. But what’s worse is a.) he’s fucking cold, and b.) his body is aching, and c.) even as he comes to so abruptly, he’s already being yelled at.

“Derek Malik Nurse,” says a twangy, shrill voice. “What in tarnation are you doing passed-out in my parking lot?”

Derek blinks at the dark sky. It takes him a  _ solid _ couple of seconds to realize that there’s someone hovering over him. And said someone is also the slap-deliver. Which, what the fuck? But then—

But then, his eyes finally focus, and the haze of being passed-out wears off, and he’s looking up into the confused-slash-feisty face of one Eric R. Bittle.

Which means…

“ _ Eric _ !!!” Whether this is a fever dream or a hallucination or real life, he doesn’t know, but he sits up from the cold, hard ground and attacks Eric with a hug, to test it out. Eric is real— covered in flour and warm like he’s been indoors, but very much real— and Derek laughs out loud as he crushes him. “Eric, you have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

As he releases him, Eric laughs, too, but lightly, like he’s slightly concerned. “It’s… good to see you, too, Derek,” he replies. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He realizes now that there’s another person out here, too— but an unfamiliar face; it’s a tall, broad-shouldered white guy with dark hair and light eyes, confusion etched onto his face as he stands at a small distance. He looks back to Eric, his heart still sort of pounding with the very real knowledge that if Eric is here, that means Will is, too. To be sure, he poses a question. “What year is it?”

Eric squints, like this is incredibly confusing, which Derek realizes it would be, if someone asked him before the events of this summer. “You feeling okay, honey?”

“Never better!” He’s beaming like an idiot. He has to get downtown  _ right fucking now.  _ “Look— Eric, I’m really sorry for this, but can I ask you a favor?”

Eric folds his arms. There’s flour on his hands and forearms, like he abandoned a baking job to come out here and investigate Derek’s presence in his parking lot. “Sure thing,” he says. To his credit, Eric is gentle and kind even when confused out of his mind.

“I need a ride,” Derek explains, gesturing in the direction of downtown. “I need to get to Annie’s, like— straight away. Can you help me?”

Eric looks at his hands, and Derek immediately feels bad, because he  _ just _ very clearly observed that Eric is in the middle of something. “Well…” he says. “I just have to get my pie in the oven, and then—”

“I can give you a ride,” says the man behind him.

“Oh— word?” He smiles at the guy. “I don’t wanna be, like, an inconvenience.”

“I’m sure,” he replies. He has some kind of accent; it’s Canadian, maybe. “Just a ride to the diner?”

“Ch’yeah, dude,” Derek says. “I’ll owe you big time.”

Eric looks over his shoulder. “Jack— are you sure?” he asks. “I can help him— I’ll only be a minute—”

“Don’t worry,” Jack says to Eric, and  _ ohohoho _ , is there some gay shit going on here? Derek can feel himself still grinning. Get it, Eric. Live your life. “I’ve got it.”

Eric hesitates, for a moment, and then nods a little. “Well… don’t you be too long,” he says. “I intend to finish my lattice lesson!”

Jack laughs, this quiet sound that seems reserved for Eric alone. “I won’t be,” he promises, and then, to Derek, adds, “My keys are just inside. I’ll be right back.”

“Got it.” Derek finger-guns him. “You rock, dude.”

Jack makes a break for the front door of the inn, and once he’s safely not looking, Derek wags his eyebrows at Eric. “New boarder, huh?” he asks, hoping to convey every ounce of chirping he means with it.

Eric swats him in the chest. “You best  _ behave _ , Derek,” he says, and then his cheeks go a little pink even in the low parking-lot light, and he adds, “I mean it.”

He crosses his heart. If the gay shit is one-sided, it is  _ not _ his place to step in. Maybe one day, it won’t be. “Not a word.”

Eric smiles, warmly, and says, “Thank you.” He pauses, then asks, “Are you here for the reason I think you are?”

Derek folds his arms. “Maybe so.” It’s like talking to an old friend; they pick up right where they left off. He wishes he and Eric could  _ be _ friends, in regular life. And not just because he wants to eat his baking.

Jack re-emerges, with his keys, and unlocks a sleek car parked nearby.  _ Damn.  _ Derek doesn’t know shit about cars, especially not 1961 cars, but he must have money. “Are you ready?” he asks.

Derek flashes a grin. His entire brain is on fire, but in the best way possible. Will is here. He’s back to where he needs to be, to make his case to him. Time let him through.

“Never more ready,” he says, and he gets into Jack’s car.

*

The closing shift is slow tonight.

Kent is well used to slow shifts, so it’s nothing new, really. He stands at his podium, seating guests when they come and waving goodbye when they go, darting around to do random tasks in between. A few of the booths are filled, and the jukebox is playing something Elvis; Denice is waiting tables, and John is at the bar. Will has the night off. Everything is in order.

This place is everything to him, and one day, when Mama finally gets around to retiring, he’ll be the owner— not that Mama won’t be  _ involved _ , at that point, because he knows she will; she just deserves to catch a break, to let him fully take the reins. He practically runs the place nowadays anyway. She would have more time for leisure, if she sucked it up and retired.

It’s not that he  _ wants _ to pressure his own mother into retiring. He just wants so badly to own this place, to carry on what she started.

And anyway, that doesn’t matter tonight. Tonight, he can smell the fries from River in the kitchen, and he likes the song that’s on, and he’ll head home after work for a smoke and the new episode of  _ The Twilight Zone _ . He’ll check on Will, too, he thinks— give him a call when he gets up to his apartment. He’s off today, and Kent has become more and more aware of the fact that having the day off means Will slips into drinking habits. Especially at this time of year, with less to do around the farm, with the anniversaries of his parents’ deaths coming up, with his heartache, with— everything.

There’s a family on their way out, the Joneses, whose parents own the grocery store. They’re the picture-perfect family— two cute little kids and all— but word has it around town that Mr. Jones has a secret mistress. It’s a whole scandal.

Being the manager at Annie’s will give you exclusive access to all the town gossip.

Kent lives for it, to be honest.

“Have a nice night, folks,” he tells them, as they’re heading out. It’s a cold one, and windy, too, by the sound of it. “Thanks for stopping in.”

“Bye now, Kent,” says Mrs. Jones. She’s always been sweet. He feels bad that her husband is a dirtbag. “Stay warm tonight.”

He smiles. “Will do,” he replies, and just then, there’s a clatter at the door, as someone comes barrelling in.

“Whoa,” Mr. Jones says, as the newcomer near collides with him. “Say, watch where you’re going, pal.”

“Sorry— sorry, sorry. My bad completely,” says a familiar, frantic voice, and Kent— Kent near gasps out loud.

Alright. That would be dramatic. But as the newcomer gets his bearings, and bypasses the Joneses, Kent cannot believe his own two eyes.

Derek Nurse, in the flesh, is standing in his diner.

It has been two months— more, now— since he skipped town and broke Will’s heart. Kent has spent so much time trying to figure out if he should be upset with him, on behalf of his best friend, for the hurt and disruption he caused, but part of him knows that there was nothing either Derek or Will could have ever done to stop the fact that they had to part ways. Will only got what was coming to him, and while it was never going to be fair, Kent had at least squared away that he wouldn’t be angry with his former lover for leaving him.

But now.  _ Now _ , it’s a whole new world. Because Derek is in his diner. Just the way he showed up so many months ago, like a fish out of water, someone from another planet, which, being from the future, he may as well be.

“Well, well, well,” Kent hums, as Derek meets his eyes. “If it isn’t pretty boy.”

Derek hesitates, for just a second, before stepping toward his host stand. He looks preoccupied, and vaguely anxious. “Kent,” he says. “Hi. Where’s—”

“Not in today,” he interrupts, because he knows exactly what and who he’s here for. God knows what led him back here, but he’s here. He’s wearing a striped fleece jacket in blue, purple, and orange that would be a fashion disaster if he weren’t pulling it off, and there’s a winter hat sans pom-pom on his head. He’s handsome as always. Will doesn’t stand a single chance.

Derek halts a little, at Kent’s interruption, and nods to himself. “Oh,” he says, plainly, and pauses before adding, “Is he at home?”

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be,” he replies. He lowers his voice and leans across the host stand, his next words for him and only him to hear. “What in God’s name are you doing in this century?”

Derek takes a long breath, like he’s catching his own, and then, Kent has to hand it to him, stands tall and certain as he says, “Take one guess.”

And Kent knows what this means, somehow.

He’s here for Will. He’s going to ask Will to come home with him.

It’s a thought so crazy Kent can’t believe he’s having it, but then again, Will fell in love with a time traveler. This entire year has been an episode of  _ Twilight Zone _ . And maybe it doesn’t have to have a twisted ending. (Even though Kent does love those twisted endings.)

“You have a car?” he asks Derek, and Derek shakes his head, so he adds, “You need a ride?”

Derek scratches the back of his neck. It’s an almost sheepish gesture, which is odd from such a casanova. “Aren’t you working?”

He looks around the dining room.

It’s a slow shift.

“Say— Denice?” he calls. At the bar, she looks up; she’s been wiping the countertop for what feels like at least the fourth time in the past hour. “Couldja come here for a minute?”

“Sure!” she calls, then puts her rag away. “On my way.”

When she reaches the host stand, she seems to notice their visitor, because she grins and waves. “Derek!” she says. “I didn’t think you’d be back to visit. What brings you to town?”

Kent has no idea how familiar Derek became with Denice specifically, but it must be enough for a friendly conversation, because Derek replies, “Loose ends to tie.”

_ Ha _ . Kent almost smiles. That’s an understatement.

“Could you look after my post while I give Derek a ride somewhere?” he asks Denice. “I won’t be long.”

“Sure thing!” She nods, and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and that’s that. Kent hangs his hat on the hook by the door, pulls his keys out of his pocket, and jingles them in the face of a very antsy-looking Derek.

“Let’s get a move on, pretty boy.”

*

The ride across town feels an hour long.

Derek knows it’s only a few minutes. But in Kent’s passenger seat, a place he’s sat only one other time before, he’s antsy. He isn’t sure if he’d call this feeling anxiety, but it’s some close relative of it. Kent drives at a relatively average speed, like he’s in no rush at all.

When they get in the car, Derek wonders-slash-worries if Kent is going to be quiet for the whole ride. Worse, he worries that he’s mad at him, for leaving Will, for breaking his heart. But then again, would he be driving him to Will’s house right now if he were mad at him?

Derek doesn’t know. Kent says nothing, as they pull out of the parking lot at Annie’s, and he’s quiet all the way up until they reach the blinking yellow traffic light a few blocks down. He glances to him, as Derek is fidgeting, and takes a deep breath before he asks, “Why are you here?”

It isn’t the kind of  _ why are you here _ that implies the speaker wants you to leave. Derek has heard that before, and it doesn’t seem like Kent is saying that. In fact, the way Kent says it makes it sound almost like a rhetorical question. Like he already knows the answer.

So he replies, “Why do you think?”

Kent hesitates, for a moment, at this. He smooths his hair back, but it does nothing for his cowlicks. It’s so,  _ so  _ weird to be sitting here, in the car with twenty-six-year-old Kent, when no less than a week ago he was across from the eighty-something-year-old version of him at his kitchen table in Vegas.

They’re the same man, he knows, but older Kent was so…  _ jaded _ , when he talked about Will. So long-since resigned about it.

Now, young Kent looks across the console at him and says, very matter-of-factly, “You’re fixing to take him home with you.”

It’s not an angry statement. He doesn’t even sound upset. It’s something he’s already thought about. He wonders if Will told Kent about their conversation, when he asked him the first time.

“And what if I am?” he replies.

Kent chuckles a little, and shakes his head. “I don’t own him, curly boy. If he wants to go home with you, that choice is all his.”

“But—” Derek pauses. This is true, he knows, but Kent is also the closest thing Will has to family. “Well, if— if he  _ did _ , would you resent him for it?”

“What?” Now Kent laughs openly. He shakes his head. “God, no. Look— I don’t know what your world looks like, but I know there’s not much left for Will here.”

He chews on the inside of his cheek. “But… what about you?”

“Me?” Kent arches an eyebrow. “What does Will being happy have to do with me?”

“You’re his  _ best friend _ , Kent.”

“Exactly,” Kent says. “And because I’m his best friend, I can see that— look, I don’t wanna stroke your ego here, curly, but you’re the best thing that happened to him in a long time, far as I can see.” The words warm Derek’s insides, but he has to remind himself that he hasn’t even faced Will yet, hasn’t even made his case. He can’t get caught up in what Kent is saying; it’s just as likely he’s in for another round of hurt. “If going home with you— however crazy that might be— is what Will wants, then who am I to keep him from that?”

Derek pauses, carefully, before he says, “You sound like you’ve thought of this.”

Kent chuckles again. “Believe me,” he murmurs, as he turns toward Will’s side of town. “I have.”

They drive in silence for a minute more, and as they turn onto Will’s street, Derek’s anticipation gets a hundred times more intense. He shifts in his seat, but can’t get comfortable.

Kent’s car doesn’t ride well on the dirt road, but Kent doesn’t seem to mind. He must have driven up this path a million times.

“Look, pretty boy,” Kent says, as they’re winding up towards Will’s address. Derek’s heart is pounding. He’s here; he’s so close to him. Rejection or reunion, he’s about to see him again. And given that no less than thirty minutes ago, he was crying on his grave, in some awful reality he hopes never to return to— well, that’s an improvement.

“I’m losing him already,” Kent says, his voice a little somber. “Will… hasn’t been well. And I’d so much rather see him go somewhere and be happy than stay here and be sad for the rest of his life.”

There’s a pang in Derek’s chest, as he looks back at him. This Kent might not yet know the fate of their friendship, or what happens to Will, in the long run, in that awful future Derek knows. But this Kent knows one thing that old Kent also knew— Will is fading. He isn’t well. And he isn’t going to get better.

Kent stops at the foot of Will’s driveway, pulling over next to the mailbox. “Well,” he says, smacking the top of the wheel ceremoniously. “This is where I leave you.”

“I owe you one, Kent,” Derek replies. “Like— big time. I’m serious.”

Kent shrugs, with that classic, charismatic smile. “It’s no big whoop,” he replies, then tips his head towards the driveway, where it winds up behind the trees and out of view. It’s all that separates Derek from him, and he knows he’ll find something so much better than Will’s empty, 2021 house beyond the trees— even if it hurts. With a little wink, like their vulnerable conversation didn’t happen, Kent says, “Go get ‘im, curly.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He throws the car door open, puts his sneakers down on the dirt road, and thanks Kent one last time. “Thank you,” he says. “For helping me.”

“You’re welcome,” Kent replies. He waves him off, and Derek turns to go, but before he can close the car door, Kent adds, “And Derek—”

This is enough for him to turn. He’s pretty sure he’s never heard Kent call him by his real name.

Kent nods a little to him. “Good luck,” he says, and Derek thinks he’s going to need it.

*

It’s extra cold tonight.

Will lights a fire in the hearth when he gets in from his barn chores, but it’s not enough. The shivers course through him, as he sits on the ground by the radio, warming his hands on the fire. He guesses that’s what you get, for spending hours out cleaning your barn, when it’s below freezing outside.

Even if he does everything he can to keep the house warm, it’s going to be a long night. That’s the trouble with this house. You can never get it quite right— either it’s warm inside in the summer, or cold inside in the winter. That’s always been the case, but it’s never been clearer than now, as he wraps himself up in a heavy jacket even indoors.

He’s out of whiskey, which is a problem. He only discovers this problem when he makes his way into the kitchen and opens the liquor cabinet. The sole bottle that remains is the one at the very back of the cabinet, with maybe a swallow left inside.

He takes it out, and studies it, swirling the liquor in the bottom. It’s not quite as pretty as it looks in the sun. But Will knows that winter has set in, and that he won’t see the sun for a long time.

He might as well hunker in and get ready.

But he can’t drink this, knows he can’t drink it— it’s from Pa’s services, that toast he shared with Uncle Tommy long ago when he saw him normally, when he didn’t tell him his parents would be disgusted with him, and at least Will still had Ma back then, and he just— he can’t drink this.

But what does it even matter anymore? Pa is gone, and he’s never coming back, and what’s a sip of whiskey compared with the overwhelming weight of the loss of near everyone in his life?

“I’m sorry, Pa,” he whispers. He puts the bottle down on the counter, and he’s going for a glass out of the dish cabinet when there’s a knock on the door.

He pauses, with his hand on the whiskey glass. Kenny is at work, and he’s the only one who would come knocking on his door without warning. Maybe there was some kind of emergency? If there were, why wouldn’t someone call?

He stays still for a moment, listening for another knock that comes a few seconds later. The knocking almost sounds desperate, and his stomach knots himself up as the possibility crosses his mind of it being the police. Uncle Tommy reported him, for being a homosexual, and now they’ve come for him, and they’re going to uncover all of Derek’s stuff in his nightstand, and they’ll prosecute him, and—

A voice on the other side of the front door, muffled as it is, cuts through the noise in his head. “Will?”

Will drops the glass clean onto the floor, and it shatters at his feet.

“Fuck.” He jumps back, because he’s only wearing socks, and the shards are everywhere. “God damn it.”

There’s glass  _ all over _ the hardwood— it’ll be a bitch of a cleaning job. He’s at least glad that there wasn’t any whiskey inside the glass when he dropped it. Focusing on the mess, though, is so much easier than focusing on the sound outside the door, which he obviously imagined, and he hates his brain for playing tricks on him like that.

“Will,” the voice repeats, and his stomach turns over. Maybe he isn’t imagining it. There’s another knock, this time a little more gentle. “Open up.”

Will stares at the glass gathered around his socks. His heart rate increases, and he roots his feet to the ground like maybe, if he just stands here, and does nothing, the voice will go away.

“Will, please,” says Derek’s voice, again, and Will can’t think straight.

Derek is knocking at his door.

Derek, to whom he offered his heart knowing all he would do was break it. Derek, who he thought he’d never see again, who he was sure was gone forever. Derek, the only man he’s ever loved, who he’s been training himself through all the hurt and heartache for the past near three months to  _ forget _ , to let go, to wipe from his mind so he can go on living.

And he’s here. At his house. In a time that’s not his own.

Will can’t just stand here. He knows he can’t, and yet it’s hard to move. He doesn’t want to step on the glass, and he should really clean this up, shouldn’t he? Is Derek going to want to come in? Does he even want to invite him in?

“I only want to talk,” says his distant voice, the same voice that told him  _ I love you _ too many times to count, the same voice he fell in love with across the diner bar, and Will— Will can’t leave him out there in the cold.

His heart gets the best of him. He returns Pa’s whiskey bottle to the cabinet, steps over the glass, leaves the kitchen, and goes to his front door.

For a moment, then, he stands on the other side of it, listening for him. He’s not sure if Derek heard his steps as he approached, but if he did, he isn’t saying anything. The knocking has ceased.

Will takes a long, deep breath, and knows he’s unprepared for what he’s going to face on the other side of the door. He pulls it open anyway.

A blast of cold air hits him first, and when he sees him, Derek is at least a few feet back from the door, like he’s stepped away since he knocked. He’s…  _ gee whiz.  _ He’s beautiful. He’s as beautiful as he was the first day Will saw him.

He hasn’t shaved in awhile; Will can tell that much, given the five o’clock shadow on his face. His hair is a little longer, too— not quite what it was towards the end of their summer together, but some stray, spiral curls escape from the knit cap he’s wearing. His hands are in the pockets of his jeans, and he’s bundled in a jacket in multiple striped colors. The whole yard is cold and gray; Derek is the only splash of color, and even  _ he _ doesn’t look quite as bright as Will was used to seeing him, in the summer light.

He looks cold. Beautiful and cold.

And for the briefest moment, as they lock eyes, Will loses every word on the tip of his tongue. For all the hurting he’s been doing, he never thought he’d look him in the eye again.

He holds the door halfway open. When he finds something to say, it’s a quiet, “What are you doing here?”

Derek takes this long, deep breath; he can see it and hear it. His hands are still in his pockets, and he doesn’t look standoffish as much as he looks, well… resolved. Direct. Like he’s come here for a reason, and Will is about to find out what it is.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye,” he says, after a silence that’s too long and too short at the same time.

Will falters. There’s no way he came all this way just to say that. “Derek.”

“I am,” he insists, and then— Will’s hunch is right— he keeps talking. “I regret it; I— I regret leaving you. I’ve been thinking about it every day since I walked out this door.”

“Derek,” he says again, shaking his head. “It isn’t safe for you here.”

“I know it isn’t,” he replies. “And it’s never going to be, but— it felt so wrong. Living in a world without you.” He pushes his curls under his hat, and he’s more beautiful than Will even knows how to say. “I tried it, Will. I really did.”

“I don’t understand.” He pauses, searches his face, and reminds him, “We— live in separate worlds. You know that. I know that.” He pulls the door a little closer to himself, narrowing the space where the warmer air in his house is leaking out into the cold. “We knew that from the start.”

“Yeah, we did,” Derek replies. “But I didn’t think I’d fall in love with you the way I did.”

It hurts somewhere in Will’s chest. It’s such an echo of what once was, what can’t be any longer. He shakes his head again. “Der,” he says, and feels his voice somewhere close to breaking. “What are you doing?”

Derek steps forward. Will is so, so aware, looking back at him across the few feet between them, that he never stopped loving him. He never will.

“Will,” Derek begins, so gently. Every ounce of sincerity in his eyes is enough to break Will, but he holds tight to the edge of the door and stays steady.

“There’s… a spot, on the balcony at my apartment,” Derek begins. “It gets a lot of morning sun, and I keep thinking I want to put a window box there. Y’know… in the summer?” He pauses, just a second, and adds, “But I’m… well, I’m no good with plants. I guess I was never really thinking about putting it there for me.” He fixes his hair again. “I was thinking, you could grow something there. I had this whole daydream about it. A little vegetable garden in the middle of New York City.”

“Derek,” Will cautions, because it’s all he can say.

But Derek continues, even as ever. “It takes about eight hours to drive from my apartment building to Good Haven,” he tells him. “It’s— a little bit of a trip, yeah, but I think flights exist, or even a train. It doesn’t matter how you get there; what matters is when you do. We could come up here, in summers, or on weekends, or anytime you wanted to. I could write in the studio upstairs. I could teach you how to set up an Internet connection. You could keep the farm up. This town— it still exists, y’know; it’s still intact where I come from.”

Will knows what he’s saying. He knows what this means.

“I’m not some kind of love expert,” Derek says. “And I’m  _ definitely _ not some kind of time travel expert. But I kept asking myself why time brought me to you, and why we met, because there was no reason that we had to. Life didn’t have to bring us together. I figure… love like that, it only comes once, in your life, and I couldn’t just— I couldn’t just let it go. I couldn’t stop thinking that if time brought us together the way it did, there had to be some kind of reason.”

Will has thought the same thing, so many times.

“Look— Will, I know it sounds crazy,” Derek says. “And I know you have a life here, and that that would be hard to leave, and I know it’s fucking selfish, but if that’s what it is to be in love with you, then I guess I’ll always be a little selfish.” Will has to remember to breathe. “I had to come back here,” he says, “to ask you, one last time. And if you say no— Will, I’ll walk away, okay? For good this time, and I’ll give you a proper goodbye. But if there’s any tiny part of you that wants it, I— I’ll have you, Will. There isn’t a time or a year or a universe where I wouldn’t have you. I’ll share a home with you for the rest of my life. I’ll take you to a place where we can build  _ our _ life, and we don’t have to worry if it’s safe, because it  _ is _ safe; it always will be.”

Will takes a breath that comes out shaky. “Derek,” he says, and Derek steps forward again, a little closer to him in the doorway.

“I’ll only ask you one more time,” he says. “I promise, I’ll leave you alone. If you want to stay here, I understand. I won’t be hurt. But if… if there’s even a small chance.” Derek pauses. “If you’ve thought for a second that you want to come home with me,” he says. “You’ll be welcome with me, always.”

The cold air feels sharp in his lungs. It seems Derek’s speech ends, here. Will wonders if he practiced it.

He was always good with words.

Will… he’s more of the hands-on person, between the two of them.

And he missed him so,  _ so _ much.

He steps out onto the porch, in his socks, and closes the door behind him, to keep the cold out of the drafty house. Derek is still, and stays that way, until Will steps forward and wraps him up for what’s surely the tightest hug he’s ever given in his life.

He can tell it takes Derek by surprise. It takes him a second of delay before he’s hugging him back. Will remembers, in an instant, the way they fit in each other’s arms, the way they always will. It’s maybe impulsive, to hold him so close like this, but Will has missed the way Derek feels here. He’s missed everything. As he presses his face into his shoulder, breathes in his scent— coconut oil, always, a smell that brings back a world of memory— the summer is anew, on this cold November night. He sees summers for years stretched out before them, and all he has to do is say yes.

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispers, against his shoulder.

Will shakes his head, though he can’t see him. The wind circles around them, but the porch keeps them safe as they can be. He holds him to remember what it’s like. He holds him and knows he’s going to love him for all of his days.

If he has the choice, he’d rather spend them happy.

When they pull away from the hug— it seems to last forever— Will meets his eyes again. That shade of murky green has haunted his every dream near every night since the day he left, but there’s nothing haunting about it now. This is the man he loves, and he’s  _ here _ , in his arms, and—

Will can’t just stand here. He kisses him.

It’s not something he expects to do so quickly, but neither was that kiss by the pond, on the picnic blanket, so many months ago when they thought they only had one night together. And once Derek’s lips are on his, he knows it’s right— so right that it sways him in the direction he never thought he’d go; it fills him with the want to leave all of this behind, to go home with him, to share a life with him, to allow himself the happiness he never thought he would have.

Derek kisses back. It’s as blissful as it was that time at the pond, when everything began.

When they pull away, he stays close to him for a moment, holding him in all the places he feared he would forget how to hold him. “It’s cold,” he says, and he can see his breath, for real this time. He tips his head to the door, as he meets Derek’s stupid, perfect eyes. “Come inside.”

Derek follows, and as he steps inside, it’s like bringing him home for the first time all over again. He hopes Ma and Pa will see him. He hopes they’ll be alright. He hopes they’ll still be here, when he comes home again.

Is he really doing this?, he thinks, for a second, as he watches Derek get his bearings in the mudroom. He takes off his hat and fixes his hair, and Will can’t think for a second, now that he’s here, now that he’s home, that he would want to spend his life any other way but by his side.

“I missed you,” he tells Derek, because he owes him at least a few words.

“ _ God _ , babe,” Derek breathes, “so have I.” In that simple pet name, Will’s resolve disappears. He’s been gone on him since they day they met, and he knows it. It’ll never change.

He wants the life with him that Derek offered. He wants it all.

But he wants his home, too.

“If,” he starts, slowly, standing an arm’s length from him. “If I come home with you.” Derek’s eyes light up, like the mere mention of the possibility excites him, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t interrupt. “There are things I need to do, first,” he explains. He looks around his house, at all the rafters and old beams, the way it breathes and moves like it has its own soul. “This house— I need someone to watch it, for me.”

“So you can come home to it,” Derek says, nodding. “I— yeah. Yes. I completely understand that.”

“And Kenny…”  _ That’s _ the part that hurts, a little. But everything has hurt lately, and he wants to believe somewhere in his heart that Kenny would understand. “I need to— tell Kenny.”

“Of course, Will.” Derek is so gentle. “Do anything you need to do. I— wait.” He pauses, holds his hands behind his back. “Are you— is this a yes?”

Will almost laughs. It’s such an eager gesture, so very  _ Derek _ , and the smile he cracks is evidence of that held-back laugh. “Der,” he says, and it’s the easiest thing he has ever done. “It’s like you always said.”

Derek pauses, and waits. “You and me?” Will finishes, and then  _ Derek _ laughs, wipes his eyes at the same time, and steps forward. Has he been crying? Is  _ Will _ about to cry? He doesn’t know. But Derek gathers him into his arms, and he’s the one who kisses him this time, long and sweet in the middle of the mudroom, and Will hasn’t been so at ease in forever.

“You and me,” Derek replies, with a nod, when they pause to breathe. He hesitates just a moment, and Will thinks he knows what’s coming before he even says it.

So Will says it, to fill the gap. “I love you.”

Derek takes his face in his hands. “I love you, too,” he breathes, and then, for the first time in months, Will is no longer alone.

When they fall into bed, the night and this old house go impossibly, endlessly warm, and Derek is  _ here _ , his, for all time if they want to.

Will will never let him go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just three more chapters!!! [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and [here is your update schedule if you’re interested](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/623405222497320960/love-finds-you-update-schedule). I love you all.


	47. next up forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is also an AJR song. This was deliberate, even though the lyrics of the song itself have pretty much nothing to do with the chapter.

_ Day 1 of forever _

_ November 3rd, 1961 _

The alarm clock sounds at all early hours of the morning.

But Will is awake, before it goes off. Truth be told, he hasn’t slept much all night. Between Derek in his bed and their long, detailed conversation about what will happen when Will leaves with him, there’s been too much to mull over to get any proper rest. He’s spent the better half of the night, even the unholy hours of it, in his arms talking things over. Making up for lost time.

So when the alarm goes off, he’s ready. He rolls over, shuts it off, and rolls back to give Derek the routine kiss he’s missed so much.

“I have to get up,” he tells him. “I’m… working this morning.”

His last shift, today. He never thought he’d have his last shift at Annie’s at the ripe age of almost 26. But laying here, with Derek, he doesn’t want to change a thing.

He hopes to God that Kenny will understand, that he won’t hate him, that saying goodbye won’t be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

He thinks it might be, on the latter point, but he’s willing to try.

Derek looks sleepy, but he nods, holding Will’s cheek in one hand. “Should I…” He clears his throat; his voice is raspy. “Should I do something, while you’re gone?” he asks. “Pack your clothes, maybe?”

“Oh.” Will has barely considered this part of it— the idea, the plan they’ve spent the past many hours making, is that he’ll ask Kenny, very carefully, if he would look after his house in the years he’ll miss. He can’t bear the thought of someone else living here, where Ma and Pa are, in his absence, while time catches up to him. He intends— he  _ and _ Derek intend— to return here, as soon as they can.

And  _ gee _ , who even knows if time will let him through to Derek’s world. But once again. He’s willing to try.

So he dresses in his work clothes, like it’s any other old morning, and kisses Derek goodbye before he leaves the house. His truck starts just the same as ever, and he hopes it’ll be able to make the trip down to New York. He wonders if Derek will be any good at driving it.

There’s so much what-if. But the one certain thing is in his home again, and he feels like the best love Will has ever known, and he’s a living promise that things will be okay, one day.

Will wants to see the way the world looks, when things are okay for them.

It’s the time of year when the mornings are dark, for the opening shift, and the sun doesn’t even peek over the horizon as he drives across town. He and Kenny are opening together, and he’s already out in the dining room when Will arrives, fiddling with place settings in one of the booths. His hat is on; the lights in the space are low.

Will takes a long, slow breath. This  _ will _ be the hardest thing he’s ever done. “Hey, Kenny.”

Kent looks up from the booth. “Dexy,” he says. He doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t frown, either. There’s a long pause, and Kent straightens, strolling his way across the check-tiled floor.

“I was surprised to see him yesterday,” Kent says.

Will laughs a little, this gentle chuckle that gets lost in his throat. “So was I,” he replies.

Kent stops, a few feet away from him, and brushes his cowlicks back under his hat. The quiet hangs in the air between them, but Will doesn’t feel— well, it isn’t  _ uncomfortable _ . There’s just so much anticipation, at the back of his mind.

Finally, Kent breaks the silence. “You made up?”

“Yes,” Will replies, because that’s easy enough to say, and then knows he has to add something else. Some qualification for what he’s going to ask of him. Some explanation. He owes that to Kenny. “We’re—” he starts, and then restarts. “I’m—”

And then, because Kent can read his mind, or something, he interrupts him. “You’re going home with him.”

There’s nothing disappointed about the way Kent says it. There’s nothing surprised, either, which is maybe the more unexpected thing for Will. He says it like it’s something he figured out long ago, before Derek even left town the first time. He says it like it’s an irrevocable truth, like it’s what was always bound to happen.

Will blinks, squints at him. “How did you—”

“I knew what he was here to do,” Kent says.

Will still doesn’t get it. “He told you?”

“In not so many words.” Kent pauses, then tucks his hands into the pockets of his work pants. He’s quiet for a second before he adds, “When do you leave?”

“Kenny—” Will steps forward. This is harder than he could have imagined, but feels so necessary. “I won’t do this if you think it’s crazy.”

Kent laughs, and it’s a genuine laugh, a nice sound. Kent has this fake laugh, this forced thing; Will hears it all the time when he’s talking with customers. This is his real laugh, the one that’s far less frequent. “Oh, I think it’s crazy,” he says, with a twinkle in his eye. “But that doesn’t mean I think you shouldn’t go.”

It seems contradictory. Will raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Kent sighs, shaking his head, and still smiling. “Love like that…” he starts. “It doesn’t… come all the time, Will.”

Wow. He’s  _ Will _ , not Dexy. Kenny must be serious. Will lets him speak, because what else can he do? “I mean it,” Kenny adds, “when I say, I have  _ never _ seen you that happy.” His smile persists. It doesn’t look sad. It doesn’t even look forced. “And if you have the chance now, to be with him… to be where it’s  _ better _ , for people like us—”

Will has thought the same himself, but he doesn’t want to ignore the unspoken topic any longer. “But what about you?”

“Me?” Kent laughs, shakes his head again. “Dexy, I’m going to be just fine. Don’t you worry your carroty little head.”

“Hey.” Will narrows his eyes. “That’s insulting.”

“Why?” Kent steps forward, enough to ruffle his hair, and Will laughs and ducks away. “It’s true,” he says, and then adds, “See, Dexy? You’re happy.”

“But Kenny, I’ll—” He can’t get the words out correctly. “If I go with him, I’ll never—”

“Oh, nuh-uh-uh, mister,” Kent replies, cutting him off swiftly. “Are you saying you don’t think I’ll live long enough to see you again? Because I’ll have you know, that’s offensive. I intend to live long enough to see you again out of spite directly. I’ll stay here and live my big, gay life, and then in sixty years, when you’re still young—”

“ _ Kenny _ ,” Will half-laughs and half-sighs, because he never should have expected that his best friend would have anything other than a very typical Kent Parson reaction to the biggest, most life-changing choice Will has ever thought about making.

Kent sobers, and cuts the old-age riot act, but he’s still smiling. “Dexy,” he murmurs, and then he takes his hand— a firm grip, and he holds it between the two of them like they’re shaking on something. “The only thing I want for you is for you to be happy.”

Will swallows. He’s closer to tears than he previously realized. “I want that for you, too,” he says.

“ _ Go _ ,” Kent tells him. It’s so bittersweet, but so affirming; Will has never felt more terrified and more liberated in his entire life. “I hope you find everything you’re looking for.”

This time, Will is the one who hugs him. He holds him tighter than he maybe ever has, even all those years ago, when people hurt Kenny and he vowed he’d get them back for it, or when Will’s life fell apart from the inside out, when they were all each other had. He’ll owe Kent everything, especially his own survival, until the last day of his life.

He never would have met Derek, if Kent hadn’t been there for him. He has no idea where he’d be without him.

“Love you, you big oaf,” Kent says, slapping him on the shoulder.

Will laughs, and sniffles, into his shoulder. “I love you, too,” he says.

“And you best believe you’re going to see me again someday,” Kent adds, as they pull away from the hug, and Will wipes at his eyes. “You can keep that as a promise. I’ll be a raisin, but I’ll be right here.”

Will is crying, and his face is warm, and he has never been happier.

“Kenny,” he says, because there’s one thing he’s left out. “I— there’s something I need to ask of you.”

“Of course, Dexy,” Kent replies. But then he walks away— right to the bar, where he fetches Will’s hat and apron from their hanging spot near his post. He tosses them to him, and Will catches.

“I’ll do anything you need me to,” Kent says. “But first, get suited up. You’re helping me open.”

Will laughs. He looks down at the apron and the hat, then fixes the hat on his head and nods. He starts to tie the apron, with a smile to Kent, and says, “I’m on it.”

Then he does his opening shift, one last time.

*

Kenny lets him off early. He cleans out his employee locker, and bids goodbye to a few people, explains he’s leaving town. The truth of the matter, which he’s come to realize more and more, is that most of his coworkers are friendly acquaintances, and that’s all they are. Everyone knows him in this town, but nobody  _ really _ knows him— and he’s okay with that, because he’ll be starting fresh.

Johnson is the most receptive, the one who seems to take him the most seriously. “I told you it’d be okay,” he says, then tips his ball cap at him and adds, “See you in the epilogue.”

The rest of the day is a lot of loose end-tying— he pays Annie a visit, and heads by the feed store, where he works out a deal with Mr. Ryerson from the farm down the road; he’ll take care of the ladies for him, to ensure they won’t go without a home. When people ask where he’s headed, his answer is mostly the same:  _ I found work elsewhere _ . He thinks a lot of people assume he’s headed out to the coast, and he’s alright with them thinking that.

It’s strange, and all very sudden, to pick up your life in one day. But Will has been so numb to the world for the past few months that this is a change he’s ready to make.

He hopes he’ll be strong enough to go through with it, to make it in the world Derek knows.

His house, though, is the most important thing— and Kenny swears up and down, cross his heart, that he’ll keep it safe in the years Will will miss. For that, Will owes him, will never stop owing him. He vows he’ll find a way to make it up to him one day, no matter what that means.

So they’ll go to New York, to Derek’s apartment. They’ll stay there, and Will will get settled, get his bearings on what life is like there. He’ll find a job; he’ll build a life. When Will has adjusted, they’ll come home, to Good Haven, and he’ll see his house again, and everything will be alright.

It’s scary. It’s the scariest thing Will has ever done. But for love like this, he knows it’s the right thing.

And he cannot  _ wait _ to build a life with him, with that freedom Derek told him about so many times.

When he gets back to his house, after going around town for what feels like hours taking care of what he needs, Derek is in his bedroom— their bedroom— and wrestling with a suitcase. It’s one of Pa’s old pieces of luggage; he told him he could get it out of the attic while he was gone.

“Hey, babe,” he says, as a greeting, as Will stops in the doorway. “Uh. So I think I got most of your clothes in here.”

Will smiles, and nods. Derek’s curls are flopping over his forehead, and he looks even more beautiful in the daylight than he did last night on his doorstep. “Thank you,” he says, then kneels to give him a gentle kiss. “I’ve got everything squared away, that I could think of.”

“ _ Chill _ ,” Derek says, with a mighty grin, and then he adds, “We, uh… could totally be out of here by dinnertime if you help me figure out what else to pack.”

Will nods. He surveys his room. To think he’ll be leaving it for sixty years, and yet feel no time at all— it shouldn’t make sense, doesn’t make sense. But the house embraces him like it always does, and the certainty weighs on his chest. When he looks at Derek, sprawled out on his bedroom floor zipping an ancient suitcase closed, he knows there’s no other choice he would make.

“Shouldn’t be hard,” Will tells him. He holds out his pinky for him to take, and Derek links it, with a smile. “You and me?” he asks.

Derek kisses the other side of his own hand. “You and me,” he promises, and they pack the house.

*

Derek is right. They  _ are _ ready by suppertime. A little before it, even, and they haven’t packed very much up. They stand together in the kitchen, and most of the house is still intact— Kenny has promised to keep it that way, as best he can.

Will worries, at the back of his mind, that leaving his childhood home— even if it’s only for a little while— isn’t what his parents would want him to do. But he can feel them, all around himself as he goes about the afternoon with Derek, getting ready to leave, and something very certain tells him it’s okay. That they’re okay.

That they would want him to be happy.

They did give him their sign, so many months ago.

“So…” Derek leans against the counter. “Do you… trust me to drive your truck?”

Will laughs a little. “You were always a city boy,” he remarks, and Derek feigns offense, so he adds, “But… I don’t know how different the roads are, where we’re going, so maybe it’s best if you… took the lead, on this.”

“Wow.” A grin spreads on his face. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Will digs into his pocket, and tosses him the keys. There’s no way he’s leaving Pa’s truck behind. Whether the New Yorkers like it or not, it’s coming with him. With them.

“I, uh…” Derek surveys the scene a moment, looking around the house, and then remarks, “I’m gonna give you a minute, okay?”

Will nods. His heart is beating a little more quickly than usual, but it’s from nothing negative, exactly.

“Thank you, Der.” He gives him a light kiss, and Derek grabs the handle on the suitcase that holds the last of his things. Will doesn’t have much to his name— never has— but most of what he’s bringing with him is practical, clothes and a few personal things. One of Ma’s handkerchiefs. Pa’s pocket watch. A small stack of photographs. Derek’s journal.

Derek smiles at him as he lifts the suitcase’s handle. “Take your time,” he says, gently. “I’ll see you in the truck.”

With the rolling sound of the wheels on the wooden floor, and then the close of the front door, Will is alone.

He looks into the rafters. How many times has he been alone in this house? Will this be the very last time he stands here, without Derek at his side?

He can still feel his parents. He hopes to God that when, in sixty years but no time at all, he comes home again, they’ll still be here, close as they are right now.

“Ma,” he begins, slowly. “Pa.”

They’re quiet, but they always are. He’s long since used to that quiet. He knows they’ll never speak to him, and he’s okay with that. They’re together, and they’re happy.

“I’m… well, I think you know where I’m going.” He digs into his pocket for his watch, and closes his fist around it; it’s warm where it’s been resting against his leg, like it always does. “But I’ll be home before you know it,” he adds. “Like I was never even gone.”

It’s as much for himself as it is for them.

“I love you,” he adds. “I’ll see you on my way out; I promise.”

This house will never lose its life; he knows it.

One day, he’ll build a life here, a fuller life, a better life.

He hopes his parents are proud of him.

He takes special care closing the front door, and locking it too. He keeps the key, tucks it neatly into his pocket with his watch, and looks back over his shoulder once as he’s crossing the driveway to meet Derek. The barn is already empty; Mr. Ryerson came by earlier this afternoon.

Derek in the driver’s seat of his truck is an interesting sight. “Ready?” he asks, as Will closes the passenger side door.

“Almost,” he says. “I… need to make one stop, before we leave town.”

“Of course, babe.” Derek reaches to squeeze his hand. “Anything you need.”

They pull down the driveway, and they’re on their way.

Will lets his gaze linger on home, as he leaves it, for the first time.

*

It’s cold and windy; the cemetery isn’t crowded. In a lot of ways, it’s as gray of a day as the days both his parents died. Derek waits at the gate, and he walks to them by himself.

“Toldja I’d be here,” he says, as he greets them, and then kneels next to the stone. The flowers he planted this spring have passed since the frost set in, but he laid an autumn wreath there awhile back, and it’s still doing alright.

This is another thing Kenny promised he’d help him with, while he’s gone.

He sits with his parents, in silence, for a few minutes. When he finds his words, he remarks, “I wish… I wish you coulda met him.”

Because  _ God _ , does he ever. He’s thought about it so many times.

“I think you would’ve liked him,” he tells them. “He’s— Pa, he loves to read, and Ma, he’s so…  _ kind _ , so thoughtful, such a gentleman. And gee  _ whiz _ — he makes me  _ laugh _ . I keep thinking how I’ve never laughed harder than those times over the summer.” He chuckles a little, even at the thought now. “I want to laugh like that every day.”

And he  _ can _ , he realizes. Something in him knows he will.

“I think I’m going to marry him,” he tells his parents, and then backtracks. “Well— no, let me go back. I think I’m  _ definitely _ going to marry him.”

He’s never said anything like that out loud before. He wants to smile, and to cry. There’s so much to look forward to, so much he’s never had. “I think we oughta get married here in town, though,” he adds. “A proper Good Haven wedding, you know?”

His parents don’t respond. He laughs at himself anyway. “Just like you had,” he says. “Look— hey, I’ve got your wedding picture.” He digs into the back pocket of his old work jeans. They’re comfortable; he wanted to travel in something worn and familiar. The stack of photos ranges quite the span of time— Pa in his first uniform, and Ma and Annie as schoolgirls, plus him and Kenny around the same age, and his whole family right around the end of the war in ‘45. The photo of him with Derek in the diner is in the mix, too, but he pulls out the wedding photo in question, to look at it for a moment.

His parents smile in black and white, but he knows the photo was taken in the summer. They’re right outside Saint Raphael church, Ma in her dress and Pa in his best formal whites, and the way they’re looking at each other, they’re the only things in their entire world.

That’s how his family started. Right there, that day. He may not have come around for a little while more, but this— right here, his parents’ happiness— that’s why he exists, why he is who he is. He owes everything to them.

This is how he imagines them, in heaven. This is how he knows they are. And the way they look at each other in this photo is the way he wants to look at Derek for the rest of his life.

“I thought I’d keep it,” he says, with a gentle shrug, before returning it to his pocket. “I thought maybe I’d put my own photo up. I think it’ll be in color.” He chuckles. “Isn’t that odd?”

Something yellow flutters at his feet, and he squints at the cold ground. On the empty plot next to his parents’ site, there are… flower petals. Sunflower petals? He thinks the last time he saw a sunflower in bloom was at least six weeks ago.

Maybe it’s a sign.

Maybe he oughta stop looking for signs everywhere. Sometimes things are just the way they are.

But he smiles at them anyway, because Ma did always love flowers.

“I’ll be coming home,” he assures his parents, and tells them he loves them once more. He leaves a few of the petals scattered over their site, and when he turns to go, he says a prayer for the first time in years, that God will look after them while they wait for him to come home.

He knows God hears him, distant as they’ve been.

*

Will watches the town pass by the windows, and when it gives way to forest, he knows they’ve left it. He can count the times he’s gone further from Good Haven than Bar Harbor on maybe one hand. The fishing lake Pa used to take them is the furthest from home he’s been, and now— now he has eight hours stretched ahead of him, an apartment he’s never set foot in, a promise of window boxes and a warm bed and a life with the man he loves.

He’s ready for it to begin.

“Der,” he murmurs, as they’re driving. “How will I know when we’ve, ah— crossed over?”

“Oh— well,” Derek replies, “usually my phone starts going crazy.” He gestures to the phone itself, which is sitting on the space in the seats between them. Will remembers the strange thing, from the day they met. He’s a little intrigued to learn how it works. “It… should be anytime now,” Derek adds.

Will watches out the window, and waits.

And waits.

And waits, until Derek says, “Ah— there.”

He looks up. Derek is looking at something on the road ahead of him, but all Will can see for miles are trees and winding highway lanes. He arches an eyebrow at him, and Derek points, like he sees something he doesn’t. “The traffic light,” he says, and smiles. “It’s working, babe.”

Will’s stomach knots a little. “Derek,” he says. “I don’t see a traffic light.”

“What?” Derek lets up on the gas, and looks his way. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t see— anything.” He hunts for what he’s supposed to be seeing, but comes up short. “Do you see something I don’t?”

“I— guess I do?” Derek replies. There’s anxiety on his face now, a look Will knows all too well, even with the months of separation. “I didn’t think you’d— hold on. I’m pulling over.”

He signals, though there isn’t exactly other traffic on the road, and they roll to a stop in the breakdown lane. Derek puts the car in park, then looks across the gap between their seats to him, placing a hand on top of his. “You… can’t see that light right there?”

He tips his head out the windshield, but he’s tipping it at nothing. Will shakes his head. “All I see is road.”

“Shit,” Derek whispers. “Babe, I— I think we’re—”

“Stuck,” Will finishes for him, because it’s easy enough to understand. They’re stuck between times.

Will squeezes his hand, and Derek is shivering. They can’t have come this far to be blocked by the very forces of time that brought them together in the first place.

And for some reason, as they sit there, looking at each other, Will is hit with a memory from so many months ago, of the first time Derek rode in his car, back when all of this seemed so impossible to believe that he was convinced life was playing a trick on him.

_ So… a kiss will send you back _ , he said, that night, to Derek.

Now, with his life packed into the trunk, pulled over on the freeway, he knows what he has to do.

He leans across the small space between them, cups Derek’s face in his hand, and gives him a very soft, very brief, but very intentional kiss.

Derek kisses him back, but looks confused, and even a little sad, like he thinks Will is about to tell him that this was a mistake and that he wants to go home. But when Will pulls away, he looks back to the road stretched ahead of him.

There’s a blinking, single light, hanging over the asphalt.

“That oughta do it,” he whispers, and then, out of nowhere, there come several loud bell-like sounds.

Will jumps, and ducks for cover. Derek is absolutely unfazed by this phantom noise, which is slight cause for alarm. “What is that?” he cries.

Derek laughs out loud, squeezes his hand again, and then reaches for the thing he calls a phone. “That,” he tells him, “is the sweet, sweet sound of an iPhone, Will.” He turns up the object to show him, and gee  _ whiz _ — the thing has a screen! It’s the most sophisticated object Will has ever seen, and he can read numbers at the top—  _ 5:28 _ , which must be the time, and then  _ Saturday, October 2, 2021 _ .

“Welcome to the future,” Derek hums.

Will lunges across the dash to kiss him with all his might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you people. I can’t believe it’s almost over. Thank you for reading, and [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. [Here’s the update schedule if you want to know when 48 and 49 are coming.](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/post/623405222497320960/love-finds-you-update-schedule)


	48. you and me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This one is very short. In my defense, the epilogue is just under 9,000 words, so we'll make up for it tomorrow.

_ Day 2 of forever _

_ October 3rd, 2021 _

The ride home takes a long time, and he’s surprised when Will falls asleep.

It happens around hour three, past sunset. Derek is tired, too, but not tired enough to fall asleep at the wheel. When they get back to his apartment, and bring all of Will’s stuff inside, it’ll be Sunday morning, and he figures a really long nap is in order.

It’s past midnight, somewhere in Massachusetts— maybe near Samwell— that Will stirs again, and Derek has to blame his phone for that. It dings; another text is coming in, and he’s peeking at it to see who it is as Will lifts his head from its slumped position on the back of the seat.

“Sorry, babe,” he whispers, reaching to rest his hand on Will’s knee. “Just my phone.”

Will yawns, leans forward in his seat, and rubs his eyes. “S’everything alright?”

“Everything is perfect,” he replies, and that has never been more true. He’s still craning his neck to see who texted him past midnight on a Saturday, but keeps his eyes mostly on the road.

When he sees the text, his stomach turns.

_ iMessage _

_ Sunday, 12:03 AM _

_ Dad _

_ Hi Derek. Still thinking of you. Give us a call. _

The emotional rollercoaster must show on his face, because Will seems more awake now. “Der?” he asks, his voice raspy from sleep. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replies, which is mostly true. This is more confusing than anything, and he almost feels guilty— despite it all, despite the horrors of Andover and all the clashing he’s done with his parents over the years— for ignoring his dad’s text the first time. “I just— my dad texted me.”

Derek can see his surprise, even in the low light they’re driving in. The Massachusetts highways have street lamps, but all they give the inside of the car is a faint orange glow. Will looks extra ginger in it. “Texted,” Will echoes. “He— sent you a message?”

“Yes,” Derek replies, and then puts the phone down again. “It’s… I’ll reply to him later.”

Will folds his arms, but not in a standoffish way; he just looks contemplative. “I thought you didn’t talk to your folks.”

“Well… I haven’t,” he replies. “In a long time.”

“But they’re messaging you?”

If nothing else, this validates his confusion. “Uh… yeah.”

Will is quiet for a moment. Then he reaches for his hand, gives it a squeeze, and says, “You oughta send them a message, too.”

He has a feeling this is the first of many pieces of more-than-just-advice from Will that he’ll follow, because he’s Will, and he loves him.

Like they’re a married couple.

That’s a thought to smile about.

Will falls asleep again, with his hand still intertwined in his, sometime around the Connecticut border, and he stays that way for the rest of the drive. He deserves it, Derek knows. They were up all night last night, and Will ran around Good Haven at the speed of sound today, to square everything away.

When he sees his city, so familiar and bright, he squeezes Will’s hand to wake him. Morning isn’t quite dawning yet, but it won’t be so far off.

It’s two in the morning in California. He’s going to call Chowder as soon as the sun shows its face on the West Coast.

_ God _ , he can take Will to an NHL game. There are so many things they can do.

“We’re here, babe,” he says, when Will wakes again, and the lights reflect in Will’s dumbfounded eyes as he takes in the sight of the city Derek knows and loves.

“Gee whiz,” he whispers. “It’s bigger than I imagined.”

Derek laughs. “It’s not so hard to get around, once you know the ropes.”

Will yawns, loudly, against his hand, and stretches in his seat. “I think,” he announces, “we oughta put my clothes away when we get up to your apartment, and then we can sleep.”

“Anything you want, babe,” he says.

It’s like that feeling, when you get home from the airport after a long trip. Derek hasn’t been gone so long, especially not compared to how long he was gone this summer— but when he turns onto the street where his building is, it’s like coming home in a whole new way. “This is it,” he tells Will, as he pulls into the parking area.

Will is craning his neck at the high-rise, that same awe in his eyes from his first view of the city. “This is where you live?”

“Fourteenth floor,” he replies. “Home sweet home.”

They leave the truck, locked safely, in the garage below the building; it’s one of many things Derek resolves they’ll deal with in the morning. Will brings his one suitcase, and clings to his arm as they navigate the steps up toward the elevator.

Will watches the steel doors, eyes wary, and jumps a little when Derek presses the button to hail the thing and it lights up. “What is this?” he asks. “Where are we going?”

“Up,” he replies, and the elevator gives its  _ ding _ to signal it’s arrived. When the doors slide open on their own, Will seems to root his feet to the ground, and he shakes his head at him a little.

“Can we—” Will pauses. “Are there stairs?”

Derek laughs. He kisses his nose, and Will’s ears redden. “Sure, babe,” he says. “There are stairs.”

They take the stairs, which is a good workout, honestly, and reminds Derek he needs to hit the gym sometime in the near future. He’s a little winded, by the time they make it to the door of 14A. But that’s alright.

He places his hand on the knob, as he slides his key into the lock. “Ready?” he asks Will.

Will looks tired, but his smile is so genuine and pure, Derek doesn’t think he needs anything else in the world. “Ready,” he echoes, and for the very first time, walking into his apartment  _ really _ feels like coming home.

*

Will is in his shower, hours later, when he considers it bright enough in California to make a call. He sits on the edge of his bed, dials, and looks at his closet while the other line rings. His clothes are now side-by-side with a host of flannels, work jeans, and simple cotton shirts.

Chowder picks up on the second ring. “Nursey?”

“Hey, C.” He smiles, though Chowder can’t see him, and says, “I’m home.”

Chowder is quiet, which is kind of funny. He stays that way for a second more, and then, when he speaks again, his voice is soft. “Are you with him?”

Derek looks to the shower door. The water stops running, like Will is done, and he nods. “Yes,” he says.

Chowder hums a little. “And are you happy?”

Derek chuckles into his hand, and feels like crying in the very best way. “Like I never have been, C.”

“Good.” There’s a smile in his best friend’s voice. “I’ll catch up with you later, Nursey.”

He  _ almost _ wants to be offended that Chowder hangs up on him, but right then, from within his bathroom, there’s a call of, “Derek? Couldja c’mere, for a minute?”

“On my way, babe,” he calls, and goes to assist Will with what turns out to be confusion over the fact that his electric razor looks threatening.

Technology. It’ll be a learning curve.

Will dresses in borrowed sweats, and they fall into bed sometime midmorning. Later, they’ll need to eat, and there are so many things to catch up on Derek barely knows where to start— but with Will in his bed, on the side he always slept on back in Good Haven, he rolls over to face him and holds him so close, and for now— well, for now, this is all he needs.

“Mm.” Will lets off a contented exhale, and Derek gives him a kiss to the forehead. “Let’s… stay here awhile.”

“Yes.” Derek wraps an arm around his waist. In the morning light, Will looks fucking breathtaking. He always will. “As long as you want, baby.”

Will hums again, and he leans forward until they’re cheek-to-cheek. Derek is so close, he can feel his eyelashes brush, just gently, when he blinks. “I want forever,” Will mumbles.

“Me, too,” he tells him. “That’s all I want.”

A brief moment of quiet falls, and he pulls back to look in his eyes. They’re every beautiful shade of morning sunlight he’s ever known. He kisses him slowly, and Will rolls into his arms, and they fit just the way they always have, always will.

“Lazy morning?” he asks, when they come up for air.

“Yes, please,” Will says. He’s smiling against his lips. “You and me?”

The promise will never get old.

“You and me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go.  
> I can't start doing this sappy author's note stuff right now or I'll get unnecessarily emotional, so let's save that for tomorrow, shall we? And yes, you read correctly— the epilogue, chapter 49, the end of this story: it'll be posted tomorrow! And THEN I'll get sappy. But for now... [come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and shout at me to your heart's content. I love you all. Thank you for reading.


	49. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friends.
> 
> Please forgive me in advance for being dramatic in this author’s note. I’ve never written 200,000+ words on one story before. And I’ve certainly never shared 200,000+ words of my writing with other people. I’m doing this at the head of the chapter and not the end because I want the actual story to stick with you instead of my emotional ramblings.
> 
> In December of 2018, I went to an old-fashioned diner in middle-of-nowhere New England to get lunch. Like any typical nurseydex fan, I had Nursey and Dex on my mind at the time. Approximately six hours later, the concept of this fic was born. At the time, I did not think that I would ever be capable of or confident enough to write it, let alone to post it. I made a notes document, sat on the idea for an entire year, and then had a resurgence of the urge to actually write it right around the time I made my Tumblr account. This time, I actually did start writing.
> 
> You know the rest, and now we’re here. Something people might not know about me is that I’m a novelist— not a published author but just a novelist— and that love finds you broke me out of a writing rut so deep I thought I’d never be able to write anything worthwhile again. I also used to write other fic, a very long time ago, and this fic marked the start of me sharing my writing with other people for the first time in about 6 years.
> 
> From the bottom of my heart: thank you, reader. Not only have I had an absolute blast writing this story, start to finish, but the support I’ve gotten from every single comment, Tumblr ask, kudos, or anything besides has brought me more joy than I can even say. Again, I do know I’m being pretty dramatic, but I just want to ensure you, the reader, know how much it means to me that you made it here, to the epilogue. Whether you’re binging this all at once or you’ve been reading along with me since early 2020: thank you. Fanfic exists for readers, and I’m so grateful you’ve taken the time to read mine.
> 
> And this author’s note would not be complete without my many, many thanks to hockeysometimes, my best bro, without whose co-brainstorming and occasional poetry, this story would never have existed.
> 
> I’m done now. Here’s the epilogue. See you in the notes at the bottom.

_ Day 35 of forever _

_ November 5th, 2021 _

“ _ Working my way back to you, babe, _

_ with a burning love inside; _

_ Yeah, I’m working my way back to you, babe _ —”

The music from his phone cuts out, abruptly, and Derek frowns down at it where it’s resting on the dashboard of the truck. “Hey!” he cries. “Those were my vibes!”

Will laughs, in the driver’s seat, as he peeks at Derek’s phone. He upturns it to consult the phone call that’s interrupted their music. How they— or, well, Will, single-handedly— managed to rig an aux connection in this truck is beyond him, but it makes for good listening. He guesses that’s what happens, when you’re bored and trying to figure out how modern technology works.

The caller is Chowder, and Derek grins. “Chris is calling,” Will says, which, like, Derek can read, but Will sounds proud of himself for understanding how caller ID works. Honestly, Derek is proud of him, too.

“That’s an interruption I can excuse.” Derek swipes the screen to answer the call, and shouts, “Hello?”

“Hey!” Chowder’s voice fills the truck. Will has this marveling look on his face, like he himself is enchanted with his own ability to rig his own ancient vehicle for Derek’s phone. “I saw on Snap Map that you’re almost there; I wanted to call before you got there.”

“Snap Map?” Derek cackles. “What are you, stalking me, C?”

“Yeah,” Chowder laughs. “You better watch your back.”

“Hi, Chris,” Will murmurs, a gentle little smile on his face.

“Will!” They met over FaceTime on Will’s first full day in New York, and have had a couple of conversations since then, but Chowder has yet to meet Will in person. Derek can’t wait for the day that comes. “How are you?” Chowder asks him. “Excited to be going home?”

“I’m very excited.” Will’s ears are tinted pink, and he’s still smiling. “I miss my radio.”

Derek flashes Will a wild grin, and to Chowder, he says, “Yeah, C— he keeps roasting me because I don’t have a radio.”

“You should get one!” Chowder says, helpfully. “Or— ooh, Will, you know what you’d like, maybe? You should get a subscription to satellite radio!”

“Satellite radio,” Will echoes. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s cool, babe.” Derek should store that away as a birthday gift idea, maybe. He will be twenty-six (or eighty-six) next month, after all. “It’s all these different radio stations, with all kinds of, like, music and talk shows.”

“Huh.” Will nods a little. “That does sound interesting.”

“I’m surprised you still have service all the way up there,” Chowder remarks.

“So am I,” Derek says, because it’s a wonder Chowder is able to reach him at all. “We’re, like… I dunno, maybe ten minutes out?”

“One exit,” Will says.

“One exit,” he echoes.

Chowder sounds like he’s grinning. “Sweet!”

“What are you up to, C?” Derek asks, leaning back in his seat. He wants to put his feet up on the dash, but he thinks Will might kill him if he does that. He tried to do it once over the summer, and it didn’t end well.

“How’s your wife doing?” Will adds.

“Oh, she’s great,” Chowder says. “I miss her! I’m in Denver right now.”

“Oh,  _ riiiight _ ,” Derek says, as he remembers the NHL app update from Chowder’s game against the Aces last night. “You’re on a roadie.”

“Two more games,” Chowder says. “Then we get a long home stand. Hey— Will, that reminds me; do you think you’d ever want to come to one of my games when I’m out on the East Coast?”

“Oh— you mean it?” Will is still getting used to, among many other things, the way pro hockey is so different now from the pro hockey he knew.  _ A team in Las Vegas? _ he asked, when Derek was showing him the NHL app for the first time.  _ But… it’s all desert out west! _

“Yeah, I mean it!” Chowder is the picture of enthusiasm, and Will’s face holds all the excitement of a kid at his own birthday party. “I can hook you guys up with tickets.”

“That sounds—  _ gee _ , are you sure, Chris? Aren’t they expensive?”

“I get them for free, Will. Don’t worry.”

“Oh.” Will taps his hand on the wheel, then nods to himself. “Well— alright.”

“Swawesome.” Chowder pauses. “Well, I won’t keep you guys. I just wanted to say enjoy your visit!”

Derek grins at the phone. “Thanks, C.”

“It’s good to talk to you, Chris,” Will adds.

“You, too!” Chowder says. “Both of you.”

“Good luck in your game tonight,” Will says.

“Thanks!” Chowder laughs. “I’m gonna need it. The forwards on the Avs don’t take it easy on me.”

“You’ll kick ass,” Derek says.

He keeps laughing, and says, “I hope so.” A pause, and then he says, “Bye, guys.”

“Later, C.”

“Bye, Chris.”

Chowder ends the call, and the music starts back up again, but Will leans forward and turns the volume down. “There,” he says, nodding out the window to a sign coming up on the wooded highway. “There’s the exit.”

There it is, indeed.  _ Exit 34 _ , reads the sign, and beneath it, it says,  _ Good Haven  _ and then  _ Bar Harbor _ .

“Finally,” Derek remarks. “And look at that. We still have cell reception.”

Will shakes his head, with a chuckle, and signals to move into the exit lane. “Never thought I’d see the day,” he says.

Under the overpass they go, and they’re nearly there.

*

Will has only been away from his hometown for four weeks, and yet it’s missed him for sixty years.

Eric’s inn has been painted a new color, light blue, which Derek pretends to be offended by as they pass it on their way into town. But otherwise, by and large, it looks the same; it’s the first building they see.

When they get downtown, some things are certainly different— there are a handful of new buildings, and a big, parklike garden at the center of town he’s never seen before but has to have been there for years, by the looks of its growth. The cars are all new, like the ones in New York, and there are a few more stoplights, some freshly paved roads, a gas station that wasn’t here before.

But through and through, despite the upgrades, this is  _ his _ town, with most of what has always been, still here— the sidewalk he and Ma used to walk down after Mass on Sundays is the same concrete, and the general store has a new sign, but is in the same spot. There’s still a maple tree, its leaves fallen for the season, that careens over the side of the pharmacy, and most noticeable of all: Annie’s, still a downtown landmark, with the same old sign and seafoam green paint job. Will can’t help smiling, as he pulls into the lot, like he’s going to work.

“It looks the same,” he tells Derek.

“That it does,” Derek replies, and he reaches to squeeze his hand, after Will puts the truck in park, in his old spot. “Think he’s here?” he asks.

“I… don’t know,” Will replies, honestly, because he has no way of knowing. He can’t see Kenny’s car in the lot, but the thought of him going sixty years without upgrading his vehicle seems pretty unlikely.

After deliberating, over the past few weeks of settling in in the city, Will decided not to tell Kent he was coming back to town. Not directly, at least. Derek found a phone number for the diner, and they found a lot of other things, too— Will is still getting used to the Internet, but it helped him learn things, quickly. Like the fact that, thank God— Kent is still around, and he’s  _ married _ , if you would believe it; his husband’s name shows up in some articles about the NHL, starting around the 1970s. Will guesses Alexei works in hockey. Trust Kenny to find a hockey man, and a  _ Russian _ , at that.

Will didn’t want his first words to Kenny in three weeks, but sixty years, to be over the phone. So when they found the number— it wasn’t difficult, what with Derek’s proficiency in all the new technology— Derek called the diner, and didn’t get him, but found out that he still lives in town.

Will was in the room, his apartment’s kitchen, when he made the fall.  _ Does Kent Parson still live in town?  _ he asked, and a minute later, after finding out he did, said,  _ Tell him if you see him that Curly called, and he and Will will be in town soon. _

Now, a week after that phone call, here they are. Here he is. Home.

“Only one way to find out,” he adds, to Derek, who smiles and leans across the seat, then kisses his cheek. His ears warm.

“You’re right,” Derek says, and together, they get out of the truck.

Will walks around the front of it, locks it up just to be sure. It looks odd with a New York plate— but he had to renew his registration, because he was worried he’d get in trouble driving around with such a long-since expired Maine plate.

As he’s waiting for Derek to join him, a small cluster of teenaged boys emerge from the front door of the diner, laughing and talking loudly with one another. “ _ Yoo _ !” one of them cries, and Will realizes he’s being spoken to because the kid is looking right at him. He points to his truck and asks, “Dude, is that your car?”

Will smiles, gently, and tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Yes, it is.”

“It’s  _ sick _ , bro!” The kid is wearing a hat backwards, just the way Derek taught him how to. He’s seen people wearing it, since he got here. To the future, that is. He guesses it isn’t such a weird style, after all. It’s good for working. “What year is it?” asks the kid.

“Oh.” Will lays his hand on the windshield. “1945.”

“ _ Wow _ !” he says, and there’s a chorus of similar wonder from his friends. “How do you keep it in such good shape?” 

Will shrugs a little, as Derek joins him in front of the truck. “It’s important to me,” he says.

“That’s so cool,” the kid says again, and then he and his friends depart without much further incident. He can see them still looking at his truck, as they all pile into some kind of Chevrolet parked a few spaces away.

“I guess they like my truck,” Will laughs, as he catches Derek grinning at him.

“People like old cars,” Derek says, in a low voice. “You should enter a car show.”

“A car show?” he replies. “Like a contest?”

“More like an exhibition.” Derek steps forward, and holds out his hand. “C’mon.”

Will looks at his hand, outstretched between them, for just a second, and then looks to the front door of the diner. Through the windows out front, he can tell it’s crowded.

Now, he has to remind himself, there’s no reason not to hold his hand. Even here. Even at home.

He looks back to Derek, who’s still smiling, and steps forward, lacing his fingers in his as they walk together. Derek squeezes his hand once, and he returns the gesture.

Will pulls the front door open for him, and when they walk inside, it’s like a breath of fresh air. There are upgrades that have been made to the dining room, like new leather on the booths and stools, and a television behind the bar, and a new jukebox— but it’s very much the same space, right down to the uniform the teenage girl at the hostess stand is wearing. Her hat is a little lopsided on her head, and her apron has some pins on it, but she’s dressed just the way they all used to.

“Welcome in,” she says, with a friendly smile. She can’t be much older than high school age; she has long, dark hair and light eyes. “Just the two of you?”

“We have… an odd request, actually,” Will replies, with a tentative smile. “Is Kent here?”

“Kent?” she echoes, then shakes her head. “You, uh— you know he’s retired, right?”

“Oh— of course, yes.” Will nods. He should have seen this coming; he just hopes Kenny isn’t out of town. “But do you know him?”

She gets a funny look on her face, and nods, slowly. “Well, yeah,” she says. “He’s my grandpa.”

Will wonders if his surprise shows on his face. Kent has— children.  _ Grandchildren. _ He never thought he’d see the day. “Your grandpa!” he echoes.

“Yeah,” she says again. “And… my mom’s the owner?” She pauses a second, then says, “Do you, uh, know my grandpa?”

“I do, actually,” Will tells her. He fumbles just a little, and wonders how he’s going to convince this poor young girl to let him see her grandpa when it’s obvious they’re so far separated in age. “Is there a way to…”

“Like, contact him?” She reaches to the wall, where there’s a landline phone, a definite new addition. “I can call him, if you want?”

“Sure thing,” Will says, with a nod he hopes isn’t too eager. “Thank you.”

Next to him, Derek rubs a reassuring hand at the back of his shoulder. He takes a deep breath. He isn’t nervous. He hasn’t been gone so long, but for Kenny, it’s been sixty years.

“Uh…” says his granddaughter, as she’s dialing. “Who should I say wants to see him?”

“Oh—” he says. “Tell him it’s Will.”

“Will,” she echoes, then nods as she holds the receiver up to her ear. She waits for a moment, and Will steps off to the side, even though there’s no one in line for a table behind him. The jukebox is playing, but it’s modern music— well, not  _ modern _ music, but music from the 1980s. Derek has slowly been giving him a sixty-year music catch-up. He still prefers his doo-wop albums.

“Hey, Deda,” says the girl. “Is Grandpa there?... Can you put him on?... Thanks. Love you.”

Will squeezes Derek’s hand again. To hold his hand in this space, so familiar but so new at the same time, feels like something that shouldn’t be allowed— and yet no one is giving them so much as a second glance. He finds something like comfort in the photos on the walls— the one of Annie with baby Kenny, and one of Kent on their graduation day back in ‘54, and a few others in color with people Will doesn’t recognize. Kent’s children?

“Hi, Grandpa,” she’s saying, on the phone. “I, uh… well, I’m at work, and there’s— someone here who’s asking for you?” She glances to Will, very briefly, and adds, “He says his name is Will.”

The anticipation has been rising in Will, all day; he wouldn’t say it’s a pit in his stomach, but there’s definitely something funny going on in his gut. He can’t wait to see Kenny, alive and well. He can’t wait to see his  _ home _ .

“Oh— really?” says the girl. “Okay— alright, I’ll tell him. Thanks, Grandpa. See you soon. … Love you, too.”

When she returns the phone to the wall, she announces, “He says he’s coming over.”

Will’s stomach turns over itself, now. He smiles at her, his best friend’s grandkid. “Thank you so much.”

*

They wait in the little sitting area, where Kenny always used to seat customers who were waiting for tables at rush dining hours. Will holds tight to Derek’s hand where it’s resting on his knee, and they don’t exchange many words. Will waits. Patiently, he hopes. He listens to the jukebox change songs twice, and then, during some song by what he thinks he recognizes as that band, Queen, that Derek likes, the front door swings open.

Will jerks, without meaning to, and looks to see who’s coming in. He almost expects a false alarm, that it’ll be a customer. But then the host stand girl says, “Hi, Grandpa!”

“Hey, sweetheart,” says a familiar voice that belongs to an old man. “Thanks for calling.”

And for the first time in one month, but sixty years, Will is looking at his best friend.

Kent is old— gee whiz, he’s wrinkly, but Will should have really known that he would be. He has laugh lines and a few birthmarks on his face, and his hair, though grayish white and a bit thinner, is just as cowlicked as it was on the day Will said goodbye. His eyes, though— they’re the same. They still have that gray-green twinkle, that signature spunk. All these years, and he’s still the same Kenny— right down to his two-toned bowling shirt.

“Kenny,” he says, and feels like crying in the best way.

“Well, look at you,” Kent muses, as the front door closes behind him. He looks Will up and down. His smirk is so familiar, even on a face worn by age and laughter. “Drinking from the fountain of youth. Didja miss me?"

Will laughs, and meets him in the middle. Kent is a  _ little _ more frail than he used to be, but the hug is long and tight, just the same. “You smell like an old man,” Will says, into his shoulder, as he’s holding onto him.

“ _ Wow _ ,” Kent says. “Well, you smell like a city skunk. How d’ya like that?”

He laughs again. Kent squeezes him a little, and when he speaks again, it’s to say, “I missed ya, Kenny.”

Which is such an understatement, and he knows it, and Kent knows it, too; after all, for Kent, it’s been  _ years _ . “I missed you, too, you big oaf,” Kent replies, and then releases him from the hug. He ruffles Will’s hair up; it might be Will’s imagination, but he thinks maybe Kent has done that elderly thing where your height reduces a little.

Then again, he was always shorter than him anyway.

Kent looks past his shoulder, to where Derek has stood up from the waiting bench, and his smile is just as snarky when he remarks, “Curly boy, you’re just as pretty as I remember.”

“Right back at’cha, Kent,” Derek says, with a chuckle, and Kent wraps him in a hug of his own, slapping him on the shoulder for good measure.

“Aren’t you two a sight for old eyes,” Kent hums, smoothing back the front of his hair. “I thought I’d be seeing you soon. God knows I’d come to New York and find you myself if you didn’t get your sorry asses up to visit me.”

Will laughs into his hand. “ _ Kenny _ ,” he says. “Of course we were coming.”

“I knew you would.” Kent wears a self-satisfied smile, and then arches a gray eyebrow as he tells him, “I looked after the ol’ home sweet home, for ya.”

“ _ Thank _ you, Kent,” he says, but words cannot accurately summarize every ounce of gratitude he wants to convey. “You’re—”

“Oh, I know, I know.” Kent waves his hand vaguely into the air. “I’m the best, I’m the greatest.” Will catches sight of his wedding ring, a golden band on his left hand, and it’s maybe a funny coincidence that the next thing he says is, “C’mon, we’re getting out of here.” He turns to go, and adds, “My husband’s waiting.”

“ _ Husband _ ,” Will echoes, and though he’s known now for a week that Kent is married, it’s still such an alien concept for the man he thought would never settle down.

“He’s a real catch, Dexy,” Kent assures him, and then beckons for him to follow. “C’mon. Your humble abode awaits.”

Will doesn’t need that direction twice. He takes Derek’s hand again, and follows Kenny out the door.

*

As it turns out, Kent drove himself here, which is impressive, Derek thinks, for a ninety-year-old. He puts them back in his car, which is a Prius, because of course Kent would drive a Prius, and brings them down the well-familiar path to the farm. Derek sits in the back, while Will rides shotgun, and it’s almost amazing how easily he and Kent are able to fall back into their familiar conversational banter even after (at least for Kent) it’s been such a long time.

“I can’t believe you got hitched,” Will says, as they go, laughing at the roof of the car. “And he’s a  _ Soviet _ ?”

“Ah, think again, buddy-boy.” Kent wags a finger at him. “The Soviet Union is no more.”

“Good fucking riddance,” Will replies, and Derek snorts. They’re working on his vehement hatred of commies, but in Will’s defense, they did sort of kill his father and everything.

“Alexei  _ was _ a Soviet,” Kent adds. “So be nice.”

“I will be.” Will is still grinning. “But where is he? Is he a ghost?”

“Oh, no. He is all too real,” Kent muses, and then says, “He’s at your house. Just hold your horses.”

“And your  _ kids _ !” Will cries. Derek isn’t sure when the last time he heard him quite this animated was. You’d think it’s been longer than a month since he saw his best friend. (Well. A month for Will, at least.) “You’ve got a lot of catching me up to do.”

“That I do,” Kent says, with a sage old-person nod. “And don’t you worry your ginger little head, Dexy. You’ll hear all of it.”

Derek isn’t sure if he’s surprised or not that the Kent in this timeline married the same man that he did in the awful timeline he saw before. He decides it’s wholesome. Proof that Kent is, in fact, capable of committed love. And in this timeline, they have a family, too; he saw no evidence of that before. Derek is happy for him.

“I best hear it.” Will folds his arms, and looks out the window. “Surprised they haven’t revoked your license yet, old man.”

Derek snorts again, and Kent raises his eyebrows. “Hey, easy now, big fella,” he teases. “I drive pretty good for eighty-six, don’t ya think?”

“For eighty-six and gay,” Derek mutters.

Kent snaps in his direction. “Bingo.”

Will’s face is flushing the most beautiful shade of pink Derek has ever seen. He looks  _ so  _ happy.

“I kept your place in ship shape,” Kent says, as they’re pulling onto the dirt road. “Because a man keeps his promises.”

“Kenny,” Will murmurs, and most of the teasing has left his voice. “I don’t even know how to thank you.”

“Well, maybe you oughta wait to,” Kent replies, “seeing as you haven’t seen it yet.”

Will laughs. “The fact that it’s still  _ standing _ is enough.”

Kent makes a face. “For all you know, I painted it bright pink and turned it into my personal cat hotel.”

“You have a cat?” Will replies.

“I have seven cats,” Kent says. “Count em’. Alexei can’t tell the difference between Kit and Purrs, but that’s alright. He’s ninety, after all.”

“You…” Derek pauses to laugh, as he imagines this. “You named your cats… after yourself?”

“Don’t insult my cats, curly boy,” Kent says, and he actually does sound a little menacing. “They will kill you in your sleep.”

Derek doubles over. It’s the most classic Kent move he could think of. “I didn’t peg you for a crazy cat lady, man,” he remarks. In the rear-view mirror, Kent flips him off.

“Der,” Will chuckles. “Be nice.”

“I’m being nice,” he replies, blowing Kent a kiss in the mirror. “Kent should be used to me.”

Kent rolls his eyes. “It’s been too long, Curly,” he mutters. “Truly.”

They round the corner for the stretch of road where Will’s driveway is, and Derek watches him tip forward in his seat to crane his neck. The trees have shed their leaves for the season, but it’s still hard to see through the forest line up to his actual property. True to form, the driveway winds and disappears from sight. There’s a Private Property sign posted on one of the trees that Kent must have put there.

“Here we are.” Kent puts his turn signal on. “Home sweet home.”

The driveway isn’t in the greatest shape, and Derek wonders if they could pave it, maybe, in the future— but a paved driveway on a dirt road might look weird, actually. Will is still sitting up, as they curve their way up the path, until the clearing in the trees appears, and past it, the farm.

Derek is curious, sure, to see how Kent has held the place up, but he watches Will, because he’s much more interested to see his reaction. Will marvels, as he takes in the sight— aside from the house being in desperate need of a paint job, the property is nearly untouched. The version of this place that Derek saw was sadder, sort of abandoned— here, the barn isn’t boarded up, nor is the field overgrown. All the plants have long since passed for the season, but the oak tree stands tall and hangs over the attic, and there are lights on inside the house, and it looks like nothing other than the well-loved place Derek saw for the first time so recently and so long ago at the same time.

Will is red-faced, and smiling, and maybe a little glassy-eyed. He looks to Kent, then back to the house, as Kent puts the car in park next to a black Nissan already parked there.

“Is that Alexei?” Will asks, looking to the porch, and Derek now notices that there’s someone there. This Alexei looks just like the Alexei he met in Las Vegas, except he’s dressed for the cool weather, and he’s balding a little.

“Indeed it is,” Kent replies, then shuts his car off and beckons for the both of them. “C’mon,” he says. “I’ll give you the tour.”

Will laughs, and jumps out of the car in a hurry. Derek gets out behind him, only narrowly avoids tripping over nothing because he’s so busy staring at Will, and then follows as Will grabs his hand.

“Thanks for holding down the fort, love,” Kent calls to Alexei; even in his age, he moves pretty quickly as they cross the driveway. Kent goes up the front steps first, and Alexei says something to him, an obvious response, but Derek can’t hear him.

He  _ almost _ tells Alexei it’s good to see him again, and then remembers that this Alexei has no idea who he is. So he waits, and flashes a friendly smile when the old man’s eyes fall upon him and Will.

“So,” Alexei says, in the thickly accented voice Derek remembers from Vegas. “You are finally here.”

“Hello, Alexei,” Will says, and his voice is a little tentative, as they step onto the porch, but genuine all the same. “I’m—”

“I know.” Alexei smiles, a soft expression on his worn face. “Will,” he says, then nods his head to Derek and adds, “And you… Curly.”

Derek laughs, and looks to Kent to ask, “Did you keep my actual name from him all these years?”

Kent folds his arms, taking a spot next to his husband, and remarks, “I’ll leave that for you to imagine.”

“Derek,” he supplies, as he shakes Alexei’s bony hand. Instead of a handshake, Alexei opts to give Will a hug. It looks like it takes him by surprise, but Will smiles into his shoulder all the same, and Alexei pats his back.

“Have been waiting for you,” Alexei explains, in a low voice, as he releases him. Will’s ears are still red, as he smiles at him. “Kenny… he’s keeping your house in shape, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Will replies, nodding rapidly, and then he wipes at the edge of his eye and lowers his head. His smile is the only thing Derek needs, and it’s enough to make  _ him _ want to choke up;  _ jeez _ .  _ Get it together, Derek.  _ “Yeah. He did.” Will looks to Kent and adds, “And I can’t thank him enough for it.”

Kent is smiling, arms still folded, as he tips his head toward the front door. “Well,” he says, “I think you’d best head on in, what do you say?”

Will nods, steadily, and locks his eyes on the door. “I think so, too,” he replies.

Will should do this by himself, Derek decides. Actually, he’s had this thought ever since they made this plan, to come up here and see the house, to buy it back from Kent, to make it their home again. It’ll be summers in Good Haven, other times in New York. Eventually, Derek thinks, they’ll probably live up here full-time. But he wants to finish his dissertation, and work in editing, and do some other things he can’t quite do from Maine before they do that.

He gives Will’s hand a squeeze, before he unwinds his fingers from his and steps about a foot away from him. “You should go,” he tells him. “On your own.”

Will doesn’t look surprised, or taken aback, at this suggestion. Instead, he says, “Thank you, Der,” and then takes a deep but gentle breath as he steps toward the front door. He looks to Kent. “Is it unlocked?”

Kent reaches into his pocket, like he’s been prepared for this question, and pulls out a key ring that he presses into Will’s hand. “Thought you might want to do that yourself,” Kent replies, and Will shares a smile with him so wholesome and gentle that Derek is  _ definitely _ going to cry like a sappy dumbass.

“Thanks, Kenny,” Will mumbles, looking down at the key, and then he walks up to his door and slides the key into the lock.

It gives, and Will passes one more glance their way. Derek winks at him, and he smiles, flush-faced, before he disappears into his house alone.

*

It’s warm inside.

Will closes the door behind him, gently, and surveys the mudroom. The weather may not be warm, but the wintry sun streams in, soft through the windows, just the way it always used to.

He takes a long breath in, and when he lets it out, he’s choked up all over again.

It smells just like home.

He stands, with his back against the front door, for a moment, gazing down the corridor that will lead to the kitchen.

He has been away from home for thirty-four days. But this house has gone without him for sixty years.

He has been praying, every night—  _ really _ praying, down on his knees and everything, something he hasn’t done since he was sixteen years old— praying that his parents would still be here, when he got home again.

Will takes one step forward, on the familiar, well-worn hardwood floor. It creaks, just gently, under his boot. It always used to.

The decoration is the same; the mudroom never was all that elaborate. Another step, and he tries to reach out into the house, to feel it out, to find his parents in the beams or floorboards. His biggest fear, this whole time, has been that he won’t feel them.

A few more paces lead him to the kitchen and living room. He marvels at how little the house has changed. His appliances are clean, and all remain; so does his couch, and—  _ God _ , he owes Kenny— his radio. His record player. His photos, their frames well-polished.

It’s all here. It’s  _ home _ . All he needs is one more thing.

“Ma?” he tries, his voice not all that loud. “Pa?”

Quiet, for a moment. He prays. This house can’t be empty. They can’t be gone.

“I’m here now,” he tells them. “I’m home.”

And then, as in a warm hug, the house embraces him, the life and the spirit of it, all the familiar invisible presence he used to feel every day— it’s there. It wraps around him, and fills his soul.

_ Welcome home _ , it says.

Will falls to his knees in the kitchen, and cries.

*

He’s there, surrounded by the age-old familiarity of his home, for what feels like a long time but may only be a few minutes. When he gets himself together, enough to stand, enough to survey the house again, to run his hand over the back of the couch and peek into the empty but intact pantry and take one of Ma’s pot holders out of the drawer by the stove, he can still feel that same spirit, and he knows he’ll never lack it as long as he lives.

“I toldja I’d be home,” he whispers, to his parents, and then wipes his eyes and adds, “I’m gonna go get Kenny and Derek now.”

And Alexei, he realizes, as he’s walking back to the mudroom. He’s here, too. He’d like to get to know him. He’d like to do that for all of Kenny’s family, actually.

If Kenny did it, had a family, built a life, with all of time and society stacked against him— Will warms inside, thinking of how he’ll be able to do the same.

With Derek.

He pulls open the front door. “Sorry I took so long,” he says, to the three of them, who are still on the porch. Kent and Derek are laughing, and he wonders if Alexei just said something funny.

“ _ Pfff _ ,” Kent replies, as they turn to Will. “I figured you’d be in there an hour, and tell the rest of us to leave.”

Will laughs, holds the door open, and elbows Kenny on his way by. “I may well kick you out, now,” he teases.

Kent puts a hand to his heart. “After all I’ve done for you?”

Will laughs. Derek comes in last, and holds his hand out for him again. Will takes it in a hurry, then reaches to brush a stray curl under his green cap. “It’s all the same,” he tells him, feeling eager as a schoolboy who got a cookie in his lunch. “Right down to my records, Der.”

Derek gives his hand a squeeze and murmurs, “You alright?” He pauses, as Kent and Alexei walk ahead of them. They seem to know the space well, which Will guesses you would if you spent the past sixty years keeping it in shape. “You’ve—” Derek says. “Been crying?”

“I’m okay,” he replies, because he very much  _ is _ . For the first time in his life, he thinks. “I’ve never been better.”

Derek smiles, with that wintry sunlight catching in those lovely eyes, and nods to the corridor. “Shall we, then?”

Will is glad to lead him by the hand. “C’mon.”

They join Kent and Alexei in the kitchen; Kent is leaning against the counter, and gestures around the place like a salesman showing off a car. “What’s the verdict, Curly?”

“Holy fuck, Kent,” Derek laughs, surveying the scene. “You should work in historical preservation.”

“ _ Pfff _ .” Kent makes the same noise he made out on the porch, and waves his hand into the air. “Isn’t hard to clean things for sixty years. But your  _ plants _ , Dexy—” He wags his finger on the same hand at Will, and Will feels guilty immediately, because he knows full well his gardens must have been a handful. “You’re a regular Mother Nature. I had to enlist my daughters as soon as they were old enough to help my sorry ass.”

“I helped,” Alexei says, and looks like he’s pretending to be offended.

Kent rubs his arm. “Of course you helped, sweetheart.” Alexei flashes a proud smile.

“I can’t believe it,” Derek is saying, and Will feels him squeeze his hand, real tight. “It’s—” He meets Will’s eyes, nodding, still beaming, and echoes his words from the mudroom. “It’s all the same!”

Will could cry all over again. But before he can respond to Derek, a weird look crosses his face, and he lets go of Will’s hand to pat the pockets of his jeans. Will has learned this face— it’s the  _ where’s my cell phone _ face. Derek draws the phone out of his back pocket after a moment, and Will learns why he’s paying attention to it— it’s ringing. The name on the screen says  _ Jayda Price _ .

Derek stares at it, for a second, before Will tells him, “Looks like it’s Jayda.”

Derek is gripping his phone sort of tightly, like he’s anxious, and Will knows why. Over the past two weeks, since a phone call he took from Jayda in his apartment office, Derek has been explaining to Will that his book is ‘on submission’. It means Jayda, his agent, is calling publishers and asking if they want to buy it, so they can print it. Will had no idea the book publishing process was so complicated.

_ Complicated and stressful _ , Derek said, when he told him as much, after this conversation had concluded.  _ But it’s so good when it pays off. _

Now, Derek definitely looks like the stressful part is getting to him. Will puts a hand on his shoulder, as he mumbles, “That it is, babe.” Will can tell Kent and Alexei are a little confused, but he can explain it to them, when Derek takes the call. Derek looks up to him, while his phone is still buzzing, and adds, “I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“Well, you oughta  _ answer _ it, Der,” he says, giving him what he hopes is the most encouraging smile possible.

Derek smiles back, though he does look nervous, and nods. “I know,” he says, and then takes a big, deep breath. “I’m sorry, guys,” he says, this time directing his words at Kent and Alexei. “I should take this— I’ll only be a minute, I’m sure.”

“Take your time, Curly,” Kent says, intriguing in his voice.

Derek swipes his thumb on his screen to answer the call, and then walks to the mudroom, in a stressful little hurry, as he says, “Hello?”

When Will hears the front door close, he knows Derek has gone outside to talk to Jayda, and he looks to Kent and Alexei to put his best publishing-explanation skills to the test. “Jayda is Derek’s book agent,” he says. “She’s been calling publishers and asking if they want to print his book.”

“Ah!” Alexei nods, like he’s understanding, which, thank gosh. “Kenny is telling me, Curly is writer.” He smiles. “He is good, no?”

Will thinks his face has been red this entire time, and talking about Derek doesn’t make it any better. But he doesn’t care. “He’s very good,” he replies. “He writes poetry.”

“That’s how he won Dexy’s heart,” Kenny chirps, with a wink, and Will can’t even pretend not to smile.

“Actually,” he quips, “he won my heart by pestering me while I worked for a month straight.”

“Oh, don’t let him kid you, Lexi,” Kent says. “It was very romantic.”

“Romantic,” Alexei echoes, with a steady nod. “You’re… loving him very much, no?” he asks. “For going to the future, with him.”

“Very much,” Will says. He’s so warm, and he doesn’t think it has anything to do with the heat in the house. “And I’m proud of him,” he adds. “About his writing. I hope…” He sneaks a glance in the direction of the mudroom, but Derek hasn’t come back through the door. “I hope his agent is calling with good news.”

While they wait, Will walks to the living room, where he reaches into the coffee table drawers and sees his old photo albums, the ones he showed Derek when he came over for dinner for the first time. They’re well preserved, like all the rest, and the spines crack gently as he peeks into them. His old black-and-white photos are just as he left them.

“I kept all your old Irishmen,” Kent says, now hanging over the back of the couch. With a lopsided, wrinkly smile, he adds, “And all the rest. I stripped your bed, though, sorry to say. I’ve got linens at my house, if you’re planning on sleeping here tonight.”

“I believe we are,” Will says, closing the album in his lap, and turning up to face him. “But you oughta ask Derek; I think he may have packed linens—”

“Curly!” Alexei is looking back to the doorway, and there’s an expectant smile on his face. “Are you getting good news?”

Will jumps off the couch in a hurry, setting the album carefully back down on the coffee table. He looks over the top of it to Derek, who’s emerging from the corridor again, tucking his phone into his pocket. For a second, Will can’t see his face.

And then he  _ does _ , as Derek looks to them. He’s grinning so huge that Will knows exactly what it means. “I am,” he says to Alexei, and then, in a raised voice, he cries, “My book just sold!”

“ _ Der _ .” Will flies across the couch, darts to meet him in the kitchen. He grabs both his hands, squeezes tight. “It did?”

Derek squeezes right back, with every ounce of light in the world on his face, and laughs. “It did.”

Will crushes him in a hug so hard that he worries he might actually hurt him, but when Derek hugs him right back, laughing into his shoulder, he knows it’s all right. “Gee  _ whiz _ , Der— I’m so proud of you—”

“ _ Eyyyy _ , Curly!” Kent cries, and Alexei says, “Big congratulations!”

Derek holds tight, still laughing, and cries, “I can’t believe it.” Will kisses his cheek, a few times over, as he adds, “Holy  _ shit _ !”

“A good deal?” Will asks, in a low voice.

“A  _ very _ good deal,” he replies, and then, when he pulls back from the long hug, gives him a kiss. Will holds him close, and thanks his lucky stars that for all his teasing, Kenny doesn’t say a single word to poke fun. He’s so proud of Derek. He’s so  _ happy _ for him. This is what he set out to do, so many months ago. He’s going to have another book.

“I love you so much,” Will tells him. “I’m so proud of you.”

He has never seen Derek more  _ relieved _ . “I love you, too.”

Will is the luckiest man.

“Say, you know what this calls for?” Kent makes his way back over to them, from the couch, with a wild, incredibly Kenny grin on his face. “I’m going to buy you two lunch,” he declares. “C’mon. Let’s go to my diner.”

“ _ Your _ diner?” Will teases, holding Derek’s hand tight to his chest. “Your granddaughter says your kid’s the owner now. I think your reign is up, old man.”

“Oh, you think again, sexy Dexy.” Kent waves his menacing finger at him. “I rule the roost over there. Just you wait.”

“Well, I’ve gotta see  _ that _ for myself,” Derek says.

“You will.” Kent whistles into the rafters, then cries, “Follow my lead, lover boys!”

Will kisses Derek one last time, before they leave the house. On the way out, he tells his parents he’ll be back, and locks it behind him.

Home is home, and it always will be.

*

Lunch is a long affair.

The food at Annie’s has improved, somehow, Will thinks, in the sixty years he’s missed here. Though the management is  _ technically _ different, it hasn’t  _ really _ changed; it’s all the same family, and Kent’s daughter who owns the place now comes to see them while they eat. In the 70s, Kent explains, Alexei found a way to adopt twin daughters, orphans from the USSR, as a single parent to the law, but he and Kent raised them as their own. The girls are over fifty now, with families of their own.

Will can’t believe it. He is so thoroughly, assuredly  _ happy _ for his best friend.

They stay in their booth by the window long after they eat. Will holds Derek’s hand under the table, though he doesn’t need to hide it, and catches Kenny up on his past few weeks living in the city, while Kenny catches him up on the better part of the past sixty years. Regarding his city life, Kent makes fun of him for his country woes, and Will… well, he knows he completely deserves it. New York is going to be a long adjustment, but he’s so grateful he’s able to come here,  _ home _ , to visit, and to live one day full-time again.

In the meantime, it’s all part of building his and Derek’s life together.

Since it’s November, and lunch has been late anyway, the sun is going down by the time they finally give the booth up. Will’s truck has been sitting in the lot all day, and now it’s parked next between Kent’s Prius and Alexei’s car, which is a funny sight if he’s ever seen one.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Kent tells him, in the parking lot, as they’re parting for the evening. “Bright and early. Don’t be alarmed when I come knockin’ at your door.” He winks, then adds, “I have owned the place for sixty years, after all.”

Will laughs, as Kent gives him a long hug. “You’re welcome anytime,” he replies. “And you best have me over for breakfast. I want to meet your seven cats.”

“Oh, you’ll meet them,” Kent assures him, as they pull away. “I’ve been telling them all about you.”

The lot smells of cigarette smoke. He and Derek wave to Kent’s car, and to Alexei’s, as they both leave the lot, driving home to the same location. Will is dying to see Kenny’s house, but for tonight, he’ll be glad to get settled in at home with Derek.

He walks to Derek’s side, and digs into his pocket for his keys, but near jumps out of his skin at the voice that comes from behind him. “Welcome home, Dex.”

He knows that voice— and as he startles, he turns to see who it’s coming from. Against the wall of the building, a man in a ball cap is smoking a cigarette. He tips his hat at Will, who can hardly believe his eyes. “Johnson?”

John Johnson, who he knows full well was born in the thirties just the same as he was, is standing in his old smoke spot, just the same as Will last saw him a month and sixty years ago. “Fancy seeing you here,” he says, like it’s completely normal.

Will gapes at him. He knew Johnson was odd, sure— but it never, ever crossed his mind that, for someone besides Derek, the time travel was possible. Does this explain all his weird behavior, all those years? “How did you—” Will looks to Derek, but Derek barely looks fazed. In fact, Derek is  _ smiling _ , like he knew this would happen. “What are you doing here?” he manages to get out, as Johnson takes a drag of his cigarette.

“Oh, y’know.” Johnson shrugs, and though his face is a little shadowed, Will can tell he’s smiling. “I have my ways. And welcome to the epilogue, by the way.”

Derek chuckles, next to him. Will looks around, and wonders if anyone else is even seeing this. Is Johnson a ghost? He can’t be one.

This is somehow not the strangest thing that’s happened to him, lately, and yet.

“The story may be over, but you have a long happy ending ahead.” Johnson waves, drops his cigarette, and stomps it out. “Anyway. I’ve gotta get back to work.”

When he disappears through the back door, Will looks to Derek, who is  _ laughing _ , like all of this is normal. “He—” He pauses. How does he even articulate the confusion brought on by what just happened. “Can he do what we did?”

Derek shrugs, then kisses his cheek, right in the middle of the public lot. “Johnson is a man of mystery.”

That’s an understatement, Will thinks, as he looks at his smoldering cigarette butt.

This time, he really  _ does _ take his keys out of his pocket. They hop up into the truck, and as Will starts the engine, Derek puts his hand on top of his. “Ready to go home?”

Will chuckles, and nods, as he puts the car into gear. “I’ve never been more ready.”

Back home, he parks his truck in his usual spot, and leads Derek by the hand back up into the house. They left a light on in the kitchen, but Will turns others on as they go; the light fixtures are one thing that Kenny  _ has _ upgraded over the years. It’ll be fully dark out soon enough, and he knows the night will be chilly. He’s glad the house is warm.

“We’re back,” he calls, to his parents, as they stop in the kitchen. It occurs to him that this is the first time, that he can recall, that he’s spoken to his parents with Derek in the room. If Derek thinks it’s odd, he doesn’t react. All he does is smile.

Will loves him so much.

He kisses him in the middle of the kitchen, then looks to the staircase; they didn’t go upstairs when they were here the first time. “Think we oughta put our bags up there?”

Derek nods. He puts their shared duffel bag over his shoulder. “Sounds good,” he says, and then, “Lead the way.”

So Will does. He turns on lights as he takes the stairs, and notes that the bedroom door is— not quite  _ closed _ , not all the way, but with just a crack left open. He pushes it gently, and it gives way to his bedroom, almost just the way he left it.

Derek sets their bag down, in the middle of the floor. The bed frame is the same, but Kent has replaced the mattress. He thinks he should pay him— he should definitely pay him, for all this work, or at least he should do something big for him as a thank you. He has no idea where he’d even begin to think of something that would encompass his gratitude, but, well. Derek might help him think.

What catches his eye, above all, is that there’s a picture frame in the middle of the mattress. Will walks to it, picks it up, and feels something nostalgic and gentle flutter in his chest. It’s the photo he kept by his bed, all those years, the photo of his parents, together on a summer day when he was a few years old. He left it in the bottom drawer of his nightstand, when he left here. Though he took several photos of them with him, this one wasn’t among them.

“Heya, Ma.” He smiles down at the frame. The light catches the glass on it, which is shiny as ever, though it should be long dusty. “Hi, Pa.”

Derek has walked up to look over his shoulder. Will feels his hand on his arm, and he murmurs, “Did Kent take that out for you?”

Will looks at the photo a moment longer, at his parents’ smiling faces, and then at the ceiling of the room, all around the familiar space. Kenny  _ could _ have put this here, sure. But something in Will’s gut tells him he didn’t.

“I don’t think so,” he says, to Derek, and then puts the frame in its rightful spot, on the nightstand. It seems to settle into place there, like it’s remembering. Like it never even left the spot at all.

Derek squints, like he’s confused, and Will watches him start to ask another question— but then, as they meet eyes, he sees realization dawn on his face, like he understands what Will is implying. He smiles a little, and looks up, with a raised eyebrow. “You think—?”

Will puts a hand on his heart and says, “I know.”

And Derek doesn’t humor him. He smiles warmly, and believes him.

Will is so ready to share a life here, with him.

“C’mon, babe,” Derek hums, kneeling to unzip their bag. “Let’s unpack a little.”

Unpacking doesn’t take long, nor does making up the bed. They make their way downstairs afterwards, because Will can’t lie— he’s eager to test out his radio, to see if it works, and if it does, to spend a contented evening in Derek’s arms on the couch listening to it. It’ll be just like those summer nights, of long ago and yet not so long.

They can have as many nights like that as they want, now.

To hold that knowledge is indescribable joy.

This, Will thinks, may well be the best day of his life thus far.

“Hold on, babe,” Derek says, as they stop in the living room. He walks, not to the radio, but to the record player, and kneels to access the box of records beneath it. “Before we try the radio.”

Will leans against the couch and watches him, as he goes through the small stack of them in their worn covers. “What are you doing, love?”

“Just wait.” Derek keeps looking, and looking, until he finds what he’s looking for. From where Will is standing, he can’t see the record cover clearly, but Derek slides out the record inside and flashes a proud grin as he opens the top of the player. “I just— want to do one thing,” he explains.

Will watches, and waits. “Well, alright.”

Derek switches the player on, then sets the record down. “Please work,” he mumbles, as if trying to communicate with the inanimate object. “Please work.” He spins the record, and positions the needle. Will wonders what he’s trying to play. “Please work…”

A scratching noise. Will waits, and then— music.

“A- _ ha _ !” Derek cries, triumphant, and whirls around to raise his fists in celebration. He stumbles a little, and Will lunges forward reflexively to break the impending fall— but before he can step in, Derek steadies himself, and flashes a proud grin. “Behold my technological genius.”

Will has never, in his life, been more endeared. The notes of his favorite song play out, jaunty and only a little muted, filling the living room with the sound of home.

_ Somewhere, beyond the sea… _

Derek walks to him, still wearing that beautiful smile, and holds out a hand. “William Poindexter,” he begins, and he carries just a bit of his trademark bravado, an authentic brand of it Will has found reserved for himself. Derek arches one eyebrow. “Do you want to dance with me?”

Will looks at his hand, outstretched between the two of them, and smiles— he can’t help it— as he meets those green eyes he fell for so long ago. “Derek Nurse,” he says, gentle and soft as he thinks he’s ever been, and takes his hand. “I would love to.”

He could get so, so lost in the smile on Derek’s face. Tonight, he realizes, that’s all he needs to do, if he wants to. “Chill,” Derek replies, and Will laughs as he steps into his arms.

“Chill,” he echoes, and Derek laughs with him.

Cheek-to-cheek, they sway in the living-room they know so well. The house welcomes their dance, creaks gently under their shoes, and close together, lost in the song, that’s how they spend the first night of the rest of their lives.

*

_ We’ll meet, beyond the shore; we’ll kiss, just as before _

_ Happy we’ll be, beyond the sea, and never again I’ll go sailing. _

_ “Beyond The Sea”, Bobby Darin _

_ released 1959 _

*

_ Dedication for Derek M Nurse’s second book, Haven, published September 6th, 2022. _

_ For my muse, Will, who gave this book its life and soul. Anytime and anywhere, it’s you and me. _

*

_ Day 750 of forever _

_ October 21st, 2023 _

Two years later, in the backyard of his childhood home, surrounded by friends and family old and new, Will says  _ I do _ to Derek.

It’s a beautiful wedding.

**Author's Note:**

> For the last time in this fic: [Come hang out](https://sincerelyreidburke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!!! You may notice that this ending leaves room for potential little one-shot spinoffs and extra content. Head on over to my tumblr to see what’s happening. And if you want to see more from me in other fic, I have [a canon-universe series featuring a lot of soft nurseydex](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622695) and also [a handful of OCs who I love very dearly](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705795).  
> Though this fic has come to a close, I am certainly not going anywhere. Thank you very, very, VERY much for reading.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [can't bring my broken heart to be untrue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642272) by [RhymeReason](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhymeReason/pseuds/RhymeReason)
  * [Fitting In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26719801) by [squidgie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidgie/pseuds/squidgie)
  * [Art for Love Finds You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536857) by [ArtbyDenois](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtbyDenois/pseuds/ArtbyDenois)




End file.
